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" The first thing Jessica Alba mentions when I hand her a camera? Naughty pictures. I&amp;#039;m talking to her about Things She Can&amp;#039;t Live Without (TSCLW), and already the conversation has surprised me. Turns out, the camera I&amp;#039;ve handed Alba looks familiar to her. &amp;quot;I had the same one,&amp;quot; she says, snapping the view from the balcony of her French villa-style house in the hills above L.A., one of her TSCLW. &amp;quot;I just lost it \u2011- which is why I&amp;#039;m so happy I had deleted the naughty pictures.&amp;quot; What was that? &amp;quot;Not that naughty,&amp;quot; she says with a laugh. Were the pictures of her and another person? &amp;quot;My boyfriend,&amp;quot; she reveals. Alba has been dating Cash Warren, a director of development at a production company, whom she met while shooting her latest film, Fantastic Four. And with that, Alba takes a picture of herself wearing the gold and diamond hoop earrings Warren gave her for her 24th birthday in April. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m bad at smiling because I always feel cheesy,&amp;quot; she admits. I look closely at the earrings, which seem as if they were made for Alba&amp;#039;s delicate ears. &amp;quot;Cash knows me very well \u2011- every day, I find an excuse to wear them.&amp;quot;  Next, Alba leads the way to her bedroom and runs her hand along a wall of books. &amp;quot;This is actually the most exciting part of the room for me,&amp;quot; she says, scanning the titles. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s great having a bookcase here. I love to read; I just don&amp;#039;t always have a lot of time to do it.&amp;quot; Her spacious bedroom is bathed in creamy tones, but it&amp;#039;s hard to see what else is in there on account of all the clothing racks. Alba apologizes for the mess, some of which she&amp;#039;ll pack up for her trip to the Cannes Film Festival, and we head to the master bath. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s probably the most decadent thing I own,&amp;quot; she says, pointing to her &amp;quot;big-ass&amp;quot; bathtub, which seats at least two and has a flat-screen TV mounted above it. &amp;quot;I take a bath almost every day. Because I work out so hard, I usually put in a gallon of Epsom salts.&amp;quot; Given Alba&amp;#039;s incredible shape, I wonder if she&amp;#039;s one of those people who lives to work out. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s such a pain in the ass,&amp;quot; she groans. &amp;quot;Running is suffering, I don&amp;#039;t care what anybody says. But it always makes me feel good afterward.&amp;quot; Clearly, this bathroom is Alba&amp;#039;s retreat. &amp;quot;I like to light my Joya vanilla candles that smell like cupcakes.&amp;quot; So how long is she likely to soak for? &amp;quot;Cash and I took a two-and-a-half-hour bath the other day while we watched TV,&amp;quot; she says, giggling at the memory. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a really romantic spot.&amp;quot; Jessica Alba&amp;#039;s childhood wasn&amp;#039;t nearly as dreamy. Born into an Air Force family in the L.A. suburb of Pomona, CA, she made the first of many moves when she was just an infant. Being a military brat meant Alba attended 12 different schools before graduating; always being the new girl in town was a reality she couldn&amp;#039;t shake. Learning how to fit in was the key to survival, especially growing up biracial. Alba is French-Danish on her mother&amp;#039;s side and Mexican-Indian and Spanish on her father&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;I was never accepted into the Latin community as a Latina girl, and I was never accepted into the white community as an all-American girl,&amp;quot; she reveals. &amp;quot;Hopefully, I can be an example to other people who feel like outcasts.&amp;quot;  At 12, Alba discovered acting, and she immediately loved it. &amp;quot;I took classes at Beverly Hills Studios,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Driving into Beverly Hills was a big deal. We had a Ford Probe and a Buick Regal, neither of which ran very well. And gas was expensive.&amp;quot; Through the school&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;showcases,&amp;quot; Alba got an agent \u2011- and her first commercial. &amp;quot;It was for Froot Loops or something,&amp;quot; she says with a laugh.  Two months later she got her first film, Camp Nowhere. &amp;quot;But I wasn&amp;#039;t just lucky,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We hustled. My mom gave up working and drove me to auditions, and my dad put the &amp;#039;never quit&amp;#039; thing in my head.&amp;quot; Downstairs again, Alba picks up a favorite picture of her with her dad propped up on a table that&amp;#039;s covered with family photos. &amp;quot;My dad is so dark, and my mom is so light,&amp;quot; she says. Has her mixed ethnicity ever come into play in terms of casting? &amp;quot;It was definitely something that made it a struggle at the beginning,&amp;quot; she admits. &amp;quot;I fell into the &amp;#039;We don&amp;#039;t know what you are&amp;#039; category. Now, it&amp;#039;s more open.&amp;quot; Case in point: In Fantastic Four, Alba plays Susan Storm, a scientist who happens to be fair-skinned, blue-eyed and blonde. &amp;quot;I play a role everyone said I could never play. It&amp;#039;s funny now, with Angelina Jolie and people who are a little bit different-looking starring in movies. Like audiences can finally wrap their heads around the idea that not all American women look like Kate Bosworth.&amp;quot; The notion of &amp;quot;fitting in&amp;quot; seems to be a continuing theme in Alba&amp;#039;s life. And Hollywood may well be the ultimate &amp;quot;exclusive clique&amp;quot; that Alba must contend with. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t really know what Hollywood is; I just know what I am. I do know I&amp;#039;ve never been cool,&amp;quot; Alba reveals. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve never been part of the &amp;#039;cool&amp;#039; Hollywood crowd, whatever that is. I&amp;#039;ve just never been that girl.&amp;quot;  Besides her role in Fantastic Four, Alba has played a lasso-twirling exotic dancer in Sin City, a hip-hop choreographer in Honey and a scuba-diving shark expert in the upcoming Into the Blue. Though Alba is the first to admit she&amp;#039;s in a cutthroat business, she claims she doesn&amp;#039;t spend a lot of time crying over parts that got away. &amp;quot;If someone isn&amp;#039;t completely gung ho about me doing a role, then I don&amp;#039;t want to waste anybody&amp;#039;s time,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;There are a lot of lovely girls out there, and I want women to be stars in every movie, in all genres. The more Camerons and Drews and girls like that, the better.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s clear Alba is thinking of her own future. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d like to do a physical comedy, and I&amp;#039;d love to do a really gritty drama,&amp;quot; she allows. &amp;quot;But people in this business are afraid to take a risk on you. So actors are only as good as the roles they get. Would Tobey Maguire have gotten Seabiscuit if he wasn&amp;#039;t successful in Spider-Man? Probably not. Success allows you the freedom to do roles in the movies you really want to do.&amp;quot; Alba walks over to a nearby shelf, where she keeps a selection of action figures from the now-defunct TV show Dark Angel. Though she can live without the toys themselves \u2011- &amp;quot;I think they&amp;#039;re hilarious&amp;quot; \u2011- they represent a pivotal time in her life. &amp;quot;I graduated high school when I was 16, and I took college-preparatory classes. At the time, I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist. I told myself that if I didn&amp;#039;t get something significant in acting by the time I turned 18, I was going to quit the business and go to college,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I got Dark Angel when I was 17.&amp;quot; The series, produced by Titanic director James Cameron, changed the way Alba thought about the business. &amp;quot;Jim allowed me to be part of the development of the show,&amp;quot; marvels Alba. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know any other man in this business that would give a 17-year-old girl so much control. It was like, Finally, all my hard work and my parents sacrificing and not having money has paid off! That was when I knew I could really do this for a living and not just be &amp;#039;Girl Number Five&amp;#039; in some movie.&amp;quot; The doorbell rings. &amp;quot;Oh, Bille is here!&amp;quot; she says excitedly. Bille Woodruff is Alba&amp;#039;s best friend and a definite TSCLW. They hit it off instantly when Woodruff, the filmmaker behind the recent hit Beauty Shop, directed Alba in Honey. It was Woodruff who, in the aftermath of Alba&amp;#039;s breakup from her Dark Angel costar Michael Weatherly, bought her the book The Art of the Seduction, by Robert Greene. The tart and twisted relationships primer is also on Alba&amp;#039;s TSCLW list.  Bille: Jessica didn&amp;#039;t really need The Art of the Seduction, but I wanted to remind her of the diva that she is.Jessica: He was like, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t go out with guys who are lame,&amp;quot; because I was seriously depressed.Bille: That was my tough love. I was like, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t let him call you anymore!&amp;quot; She did not stop crying. She was like, [mimics crying] &amp;quot;Nobody likes me...&amp;quot;Jessica: It was the worst.  The two friends share a knowing look, but it&amp;#039;s not all about nursing bad breakups. &amp;quot;Whenever I&amp;#039;m feeling fat, Bille takes me shopping and makes me try on jeans that make my booty look bigger,&amp;quot; Alba says. &amp;quot;Well, I don&amp;#039;t want her to get too skinny,&amp;quot; says Bille. &amp;quot;You know, that Hollywood thing.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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