Jessica Alba
Birth name Jessica Marie Alba
Born April 28, 1981 (1981-04-28) (age 26)
Flag of United States Pomona, California, United States
Notable roles Max Guevara
in Dark Angel
Nancy Callahan
in Sin City
Sue Richards / Invisible Woman
in Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American actress. She is
known for her roles in Dark Angel, Sin City, Fantastic Four and Into the
Blue.
Biography
Early life
Alba was born in Pomona, California, to Mark Alba, who is Mexican American
(though both of Jessica Alba's paternal grandparents were born in
California),[1] and Catherine Jensen, who has French and Danish ancestry;
the two married while in their teenage years.[2][3][4] Her maternal
grandfather was a Marine NCO for thirty years, serving in the Pacific during
WWII, and later as Asst. Drum Major for the United States Marine Band. Alba
was raised in an Air Force family, along with her brother, Joshua, an actor
who appeared with her in the season one finale of Dark Angel, and her
grandparents until she was 17 years old. Her father's Air Force career took
the family to Biloxi, Mississippi and Del Rio, Texas, before they settled
back in California.
She has also acknowledged suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder
during childhood.[5]
Career
Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp
Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned
into a two month job when the actress in one of the prominent roles dropped
out.
Alba appeared in two national TV commercials for Nintendo and J.C. Penney as
a child; she was later featured in several independent films. She branched
out into TV in 1994 with a recurring role as Jessica in three episodes of
the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then
performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the TV series
Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim
before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills
which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the
Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of
Beverly Hills 90210 and as Layla in an episode of The Love Boat: The Next
Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S..
After graduating from high school, Alba studied acting with William H. Macy
and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was
developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director,
David Mamet.
Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a
member of a snobby high school clique in the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy
Never Been Kissed, and as the female lead in the 1999 comedy-horror film
Idle Hands, opposite Devon Sawa. Her big break came when writer/director
James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of
the genetically-engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi TV
series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran
for two seasons before being canceled in 2002. Since then her most notable
roles have been as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, exotic dancer
Nancy Callahan in Sin City and as the classic Marvel Comics character Sue
Storm, the Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four. Jessica went on to host
the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King
Kong, Mission Impossible 3, and The Da Vinci Code.
On the cover of the March 2006 issue, Playboy magazine named Alba among its
25 Sexiest Celebrities, and the Sex Star of the Year. Alba was involved in
litigation against Playboy for its use of her image (from a promotional shot
for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the
appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial".
However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology
from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner who agreed to make donations to two charities
that Alba has supported.
In 2006, readers of Askmen.com voted Alba No. 1 on 99 Most Desirable
Women,[6] while in 2007, Maxim Magazine placed Alba on the number 2 spot of
their Top 100,[7] Both GQ and In Style magazines had Alba on their June
covers,[8][9] and in May, after eight million votes, FHM named Alba the
winner as 2007’s Sexiest Woman in the World.[10]
Alba fears being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered
to her.[11] "Somehow, I don't think this is happening to Natalie Portman,"
laments Alba. In the interview, Alba says she wants to be taken seriously as
an actress but believes she needs to do movies that she would otherwise not
be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hopes to
be more selective in her film projects.
Personal life
Alba has revealed that she envisions a much older man as her ideal partner,
making references to Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, and
Michael Caine. "I have this thing for older men. They've been around and
know so much."[12]
Regarding children, Alba said, "I'm really girly when it comes to kids. I've
been surrounded by kids my whole life because I'm the oldest of 15 cousins —
I've been changing diapers since I was six. I want to have a couple, for
sure".[13]
She has a tattoo of a daisy with a ladybug on the back of her neck, the
Sanskrit symbol for the lotus flower, padma, on her wrist,[14] and a lower
back tattoo of a bow.
Religion
Alba was raised Catholic and still considers herself "spiritual".[2] In her
adolescence, she became a born-again Christian,[15] but left the church -
“ "'when older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because
I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like
if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault, and
it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.' She also [...] disagrees
with the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality, and was
bothered by the lack of strong female role models in the Bible. '[…] it
certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life.'"[3] ”
As the daughter of conservative parents, Alba, whose grandparents did not
allow her to wear a bathing suit around the house, maintains a no-nudity
clause in her contract, though she has claimed she had been open to the
possibility of appearing nude in Sin City. She remarked of a GQ shoot in
which she was scantily clad: "They didn't want me to wear the granny
panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny
panties".[16]
Alba was given the option to appear naked by the film's directors, Frank
Miller and Robert Rodriguez but declined the offer saying, "I don't do
nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get
hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety".[3]
Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
1994 Camp Nowhere Gail
1995 Venus Rising Young Eve
1995–1996 Flipper Maya (TV series)
1996 Too Soon for Jeff Christy (TV series)
1999 P.U.N.K.S. Samantha Swoboda
Never Been Kissed Kirsten Liosis
Idle Hands Molly
2000 Paranoid Chloe
2000–2002 Dark Angel Max Guevara/X5-452 (TV series)
2003 The Sleeping Dictionary Selima
Honey Honey Daniels
2005 Sin City Nancy Callahan
Fantastic Four Sue Storm / Invisible Woman
Into the Blue Sam
2007 Awake Sam (completed)
Good Luck Chuck Cam Wexler (completed)
Bill Lucy (post-production)
The Ten Liz
The Eye Allison (filming)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Sue Richards / Invisible Woman
(completed)
The Eye 2 Part 2 Allison (Cameo)
Sin City 2 Nancy Callahan (Cameo)
Awards
* 2000: Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television — Dark Angel
* 2001: TV Guide Awards for Breakout Star of the Year — Dark Angel
* 2001: Teen Choice Awards for Choice Actress — Dark Angel
* 2006: (Maxim) top 100- Most beautiful woman alive
* 2006: MTV Movie Awards 2006 for Sexiest Performance - Sin City
* 2007: Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards, June 13, 2007. Named "Hottest
Jessica", over Jessica Biel[17]
Further reading
* Interview in Hollywood Life magazine; September/October 2005 pp. 44 – 49;
106.
* Interview on Access Hollywood 2005-09-21
* OK! magazine; 2005-10-03; pg. 34 – 39
* Interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno; 2005-09-26
* The 2006 Academy Awards
* AskMen.com - #1 Most Desirable Women of 2006: http://www.askmen.com/specials/2006_top_99/jessica-alba-1_search_dictionary.html
References
1. ^ http://www.mediatakeout.com/7187/jessica_alba_dont_call_me_a_latina_search_dictionary.html
2. ^ a b http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/you/article_search_dictionary.html?in_article_id=460832&in_page_id=1908
3. ^ a b c Dave Itzkoff (November 2006). Fashionalba. Elle.
4. ^ http://www.burnhamandhighbridgeweeklynews.co.uk/mostpopular.var.1473931.mostviewed.alist_alba_is_a_real_supergirl.php
5. ^ Jessica Alba Treated For Mental Disorder
6. ^ AskMen.com - Jessica Alba.
7. ^ Maxim Top 100 for 2007
8. ^ GQ: The Jessica Alba Video
9. ^ In Style 6/2007
10. ^ FHM 2007’s Sexiest Woman
11. ^ WENN (9 Nov. 2005). Alba Fears Whore Typecast.
12. ^ Jessica Alba likes old gross people
13. ^ Alba: 'I want to have lots of kids'
14. ^ photo
15. ^ Dave Gardetta (April 2005). The Sinner. GQ.
16. ^ Contactmusic.com (March 2005). Alba Turns Her Back on Christian Pals
Who Made Her Feel Ashamed.
17. ^ http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7007610757 Allheadlinenews.com
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