<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterest\n\nIf you\u2019re going to sit in Jessica Alba\u2019s kitchen and eat her waffles; if you\u2019re going to head downstairs to the rec room to check out her single-malt-scotch collection (impressive for a 26-year-old) or the tasteful Kama Sutra wood carving that her parents don\u2019t approve of; if you\u2019re going to follow her into the spare bedroom and, at her urging, jump on the TurboSonic vibration-training apparatus that she won at an awards show (\u201CHow weird is that?\u201C she asks, cracking up as she flips a switch so you shake like a jackhammer operator); if you\u2019re going to do all this and still hope to get a straight answer to your one tough question\u2014you still with What\u2019s-his-name, the director\u2019s-assistant guy?\u2014then at some point, you\u2019ll have to look at this bikini problem through her eyes.\n\nBecause men are sneaky, and bikinis, it seems, are the instrument of their sneakiness.\n\nWhen Alba signed on to the 2005 movie Into the Blue, for example, she was all set to play a marine-biology student\u2014the sort of woman smart enough to wear a wet suit when scuba diving. \u201CBut then the people in charge decided to dumb it down,\u201C she says, as we sit side by side on barstools at her kitchen counter, adding fresh berries and maple syrup to our waffles. \u201CAnd all of a sudden, the wet suits went away.\u201C Before Alba even showed up, the quick-thinking boys in production shot a slew of underwater scenes with her double dressed only in a bikini. \u201CI had to match what they\u2019d already shot,\u201C she says. \u201CIf I\u2019d bitched about the change, I would\u2019ve been called a diva. I can\u2019t say it was the first time that ever happened. And I can\u2019t say it\u2019ll be the last.\u201C\n\nAlba spent a hefty part of her adolescence around water, bathing suits, and the roving eyes of professionals\u2014from ages 12 to 15, she worked as a series regular on The New Adventures of Flipper\u2014so none of this comes as a surprise. As we talk, she keeps tugging the long sleeves of her knit shirt down over her hands, a gesture I can\u2019t help but notice because it has a dual effect: It makes her appear more vulnerable and sincere, but it also transforms her workout top into something much sexier, a sort of Oscar-party off-the-shoulder look. She gets up to go to the espresso machine, still talking about men and their relentless eyeballing. \u201CWhen you see the camera right here,\u201C she says, looking down at her black yoga bell-bottoms and moving her arms into a flagman\u2019s V, \u201Cyou\u2019re like, \u0091Uh, that\u2019s my crotch\u2026 I\u2019m going to stand over here.\u2019 You know? Cameramen are just horny sometimes.\u201C\n\nIsn\u2019t that why they\u2019re cameramen?\n\nShe gives the notion a more indulgent spin\u2014\u201Cso they can capture beauty, and they can capture\u2026\u201C\u2014and then she takes a long pause, during which she smiles and refrains from enumerating precisely what it is about her that guys with cameras are always trying to capture. It all seems to amuse her, but her strongest reaction to being the subject of so much attention (if attention is the right word for all those screen grabs and beach-vacation telephoto shots on the Internet) is to plunge into work. She has six movies coming out, a festival\u2019s worth of Albacinephilia that includes this summer\u2019s Fantastic Four sequel and Good Luck Chuck, a sex farce with extended servings of \u201970s-style jiggle and raunch (alas, none of it Alba\u2019s). It\u2019s a surge of productivity that could help movie ecs, as she wryly puts it, in \u201Cgetting past my hotness.\u201C Because ridiculous as it sounds, her hotness has apparently closed a few doors. \u201CRight now,\u201C she says, \u201CI\u2019m just exploring what my contribution to this business is\u2014other than wearing a bikini and getting caught by the paparazzi.\u201C\n\n\n\nAlba\u2019s waffles are excellent, by the way\u2014she makes them from scratch, talking easily, the way someone who knows her way around a kitchen does. She laughs so much it catches me a bit off guard. Before coming to brunch, I\u2019d seen nearly everything she has done\u2014\u201COh, I\u2019m so sorry,\u201C she says with a smile\u2014and for whatever reason, she has rarely had to laugh in her early roles. Except for a few bikini scenes, it\u2019s been pretty much the same broody persona ever since her breakthrough performance as Max Guevara, an ass-kicking avenger with a trace of feline DNA, on Fox\u2019s 2000 cult hit Dark Angel. For a while, the then 19-year-old Alba was everywhere, staring out of billboards with a predatory expressionlessness, her lips\u2014an overendowment that was hers alone, in the way that Salma Hayek or Jennifer Lopez might lay claim to other reaches of the anatomy\u2014turned down in a natural pout.\n\nIn person, the pout is nonexistent. So is the aloofness. Alba keeps the TV in her kitchen set to a news channel on mute, and within seconds of my arrival a segment on the day\u2019s bombings in Baghdad prompts a fierce broadside about \u201Ckids that are dying in Iraq\u201C and the sitting president\u2019s policies that are like a \u201Cfuck-you to people with families.\u201C Alba knows what she\u2019s talking about: She comes from working-class military people and grew up on air-force bases in Mississippi and Texas before settling in California. Her parents were young when they had her, she tells me, and her father joined the military to make ends meet. When they met, her dad, a second-generation Mexican-American, looked like Erik Estrada, and her mom resembled Farrah Fawcett. This goes a long way in explaining Alba\u2019s look: part Mexican, part Scandinavian, and all \u201970s heartthrob.\n\nAlthough she has worked steadily since she was 12, eventually living in Florida, Australia, Vancouver, Borneo, and so on, she stays close to her parents, who now live just a few minutes away. She brings them with her to awards shows, where, inevitably, the clan is seated with all the Latin people. \u201CSo there we were,\u201C she says. \u201CMarc Anthony was there, and George Lopez starts speaking to my father in Spanish, and my dad says, \u0091I don\u2019t speak Mexican.\u2019 I turned purple. Like, \u0091Dad, how can you even make that comment?\u2019 \u201C She softens immediately. \u201CI love my papa. But he has no filter. I probably acquired that characteristic from him.\u201C\n\nThe long-form version of Alba\u2019s heritage is something like Mexican-Spanish-Danish-French-Canadian-American. She just calls it \u201Cmid,\u201C and it has allowed her to fulfill a sort of one-woman color-blind casting policy. She has played a Greek, a Czech, a Brit-Malaysian, a Puerto Rican. She\u2019s believable playing \u201Cgenetically enhanced\u201C or \u201Cgifted with superpowers as the result of an encounter with a cosmic storm,\u201C but she still worries that ecutives and casting agents will pigeonhole her talents. So she\u2019s taken a lot of ill-advised work\u2014like Honey, playing a Bronx choreographer with a heart of gold, and Paranoid, playing a model\u2014as a sort of antidote to whatever big blockbuster gigs she had going.\n\nAlba\u2019s work ethic is one reason you don\u2019t read much about her in the gossip pages. The most lived-in items I see in her house are the three beat-up suitcases piled in a corner of her otherwise spotless garage, and all this travel seems to be expanding her range. In Good Luck Chuck, she does charmingly klutzy for the first time, pulling off the film\u2019s scripted slapstick routines with action-star flair. The best bit of business, though, is something she made up herself: running back to Chuck\u2019s convertible, she vaults exuberantly into the passenger seat, bonks her head on the gearshift, and immediately resurfaces with a big goofy smile. \u201CEverybody was like, \u0091You did that on purpose?\u2019 \u201C she says. \u201CAnd I was like, \u0091Did it work?\u2019 \u201C\n\nAlba\u2019s starting to get serious parts, too. She says that she\u2019ll be reprising her role as the pure-hearted stripper Nancy Callahan for Sin City 2 and that Frank Miller is writing new material to expand her character. Two of her upcoming movies she took over from other actresses: Long before production began on The Eye, a Tom Cruise-produced remake of a Hong Kong supernatural lm, Ren\u00E9e Zellweger left the role that Alba later signed on to play. And last summer, after Lindsay Lohan walked away from the film Bill, Alba took over her part. \u201CI wanted to work with Aaron Eckhart,\u201C she tells me.\n\nIn many ways, this makes sense: Alba might just be the anti-Lohan. She\u2019s utterly reliable, free of psychodrama, an unlikely candidate for rehab. Whatever she\u2019s wearing, you can be certain it will not malfunction. When we talk, she insists on showing off just how normal, dorky, and tidy her daily life is\u2014the pink KitchenAid mir, the silver-framed photos of boyfriend Cash Warren. All this personal discretion gives her a throwback quality on-screen, and it\u2019s an essential part of her mystique and her movie-star persona. \u201CThe movie business gives a lot of people power\u2014not always the right people,\u201C she says. \u201CBut you can tell who to trust. You can tell when people have the right thing in mind and when they\u2019re just pricks for prick\u2019s sake. And in all honesty, for the sake of art or a great movie, you still have to hold on to your dignity and who you are. If you lose that to be in a great movie? That\u2019s your journey, not mine. Life\u2019s too fucking short.\u201C\n\n\n\nWe\u2019ll know exactly what this life-is-short philosophy looks like in theaters by the end of the summer. For now, I can tell you what it looks like on the road: scary. After breakfast, we set out in Alba\u2019s week-old Prius to take her dogs\u2014a bulldog, Bowie, and a pug, Sid\u2014for a walk, and she handles the deserted canyon roads in a decidedly un-Prius-like manner. \u201CA while back, I was looking for a sports car,\u201C she says, \u201Cand I went to all the dealerships and asked for the most souped-up cars in my price range. I took them out to Mulholland and spun them all out.\u201C She finally settled on a BMW M3, because it hugged the road when she cranked the wheel and put her foot on the gas. That was two cars ago, but she\u2019s driving now as if performing a sense-memory ercise.\n\nWhen she stops the car, we\u2019re parked at the bottom of a mountain. Bowie and Alba take off up a trail, and I follow with Sid, who drags me through the chaparral. After a short climb, Alba lets Sid off the leash\u2014for Sid\u2019s sake or mine, I\u2019m not sure\u2014and we continue ducking through the brush, scrambling after the dogs. \u201COh, Sid!\u201C she says, when we come upon the pug taking a dump right in the middle of the trail.\n\nAlba is still playing the gracious hostess, gesturing at the brambles and sandy switchbacks above us apologetically: \u201CI didn\u2019t know we were doing this, by the way.\u201C A few hundred vertical feet later, we reach the top, and I say the only sane thing there is to say about the view: \u201COmigod.\u201C\n\n\u201CCrazy, right?\u201C she says, \u201CIsn\u2019t that nuts?\u201C\n\nFrom the summit, you can look across the canyon to Beverly Park, a gated community just off Mulholland. From a mile or so away, the place looks ridiculous, crowded and grandiose at once, as if all the French nobility decided to build their castles on the same mountaintop. When I ask whether she could see herself in something like that, Alba demurs, but she doesn\u2019t criticize it, either\u2014she has worked for and socialized with some of the Hollywood titans who live there. \u201CI suppose it could be ideal, if you make a buttload of money,\u201C she says, trailing off. She considers her own neighborhood and its hilltop views of Los Angeles as \u201Creally superdorky,\u201C and she happily distinguishes it from more fashionable hilltops nearby, \u201Cwhere all the other little star people live.\u201C\n\nWe sit on the sandy top, and Alba takes advantage of the view to try out some big thoughts. She dismisses her professional restlessness as a thing of the past and pronounces herself happy with who she is right now. \u201CI don\u2019t expect other people to do the work for me,\u201C she says. \u201CI want variety, and I\u2019ve done that. And I guess my arms are open to whatever\u2019s next.\u201C It\u2019s just a dog walk on a sunny Friday, a moment to relax at the start of her first week off after months on sets, but here she is, hammering out a personal credo and making a quiet point: What could possibly be wrong with being both hot and serious? You get the impression that whatever Alba does\u2014whether it\u2019s a superhero franchise or playing along with a photo shoot\u2014she knows exactly what she\u2019s doing.\n\nAlba claims to be clumsy, so I lead the way down the mountain. \u201CI fell so many times on The Eye, the crew there would get embarrassed for me,\u201C she says. \u201CWhen I first met Alessandro\u201C\u2014Nivola, her costar on the movie\u2014\u201CI fell down the stairs. And then on Fantastic Four, I would always twist my ankle and fall down completely. It\u2019s just frustrating, always hurting yourself. For Dark Angel, Jim Cameron actually made me do gymnastics and dance training so I could be more coordinated.\u201C\n\nWe reach the parking lot without incident. Back behind the wheel of the Prius, Alba turns onto the empty road, and as she accelerates, she tugs on her sleeves again, revealing her bare shoulders with that same Flashdance gesture I\u2019d seen in the morning.\n\nThis time, I call her on it.\n\n\u201CAre your hands cold?\u201C I ask.\n\n\u201CIt\u2019s just a nervous habit,\u201C she says. \u201CThank you for making me aware of it.\u201C Her words are kind, but they nevertheless convey a slight edge\u2014something like \u201CDon\u2019t you try that bikini thing on me, too, buddy.\u201C\n\nBut then she laughs again, and as she slaloms wildly back down Mulholland, she talks about putting a hole in her sleeve for her thumb, so she can just keep it that way."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/jessica-alba-actress-into-the-blue-movies-flipper-television-celebrity?currentPage=2>