Jessica Alba reveals daughter Honor was unimpressed with her voicing a villain in Escape From Planet Earth

Escape-from-Planet-Earth-Jessica-Alba-as-LenaSpeaking to MailOnline exclusively about the new movie, Jessica said: ‘My daughter was three and a half when she first saw the movie and now she’s five. But she was mainly really confused about why I was playing the baddie. She was like, “Is she evil?” And then she said, “Are you?” So I said, “Honor, it’s just fun, it’s just a movie – it’s like playing dress up”.

‘But she said, “Why does she have to be bad? Next time, can you play the nice one?” I couldn’t really tell her that it was actually fun to play the baddie!’

Escape From Planet Earth is a departure in more ways than one for Jessica, who made her animated film debut with the role.

And admitting shooting an animated film was more than a little different than what she was used to, Jessica said: I really enjoyed it actually. It was a totally foreign process for me because I didn’t even see any of the other actors who were in the film and for the first couple of days of recording I didn’t even know what my character looked like.

‘It was nice to be able to just go to a studio and play around. It was really good.’

Despite the film having a stellar voice cast, with Brendan Fraser and Sofia Vergara also voicing characters in the film, Jessica didn’t get to meet her co-stars while recording.

She said: ‘We all recorded our scenes separately. I often just worked with the writer who did the other voices.

‘I had him to bounce off of but it is very different when you see the final cut to see how they interact. It was a little bit strange for sure, but that’s just how they do it with the animated films.’

Escape From Planet Earth tells the story of famed astronaut Scorch Supernova (voiced by Fraser) who gets trapped by evil forces on a ‘Dark Planet’, also known as Earth, and has to be rescued by his brother.

But while a lot of the movie is set in space, Jessica admits that exploring the outer realms of the universe isn’t something she’s particularly keen to do.

She said: ‘I have no desire to go into space. I’m claustrophobic so I think I would just freak out if I was in space, I would just want to get out of there. I don’t think I could do that.’

Jessica also spoke about the upcoming new Fantastic Four movie – a remake of the film in which she played Sue Storm.

She added: ‘I think it’s great they’re doing another Fantastic Four – I love that comic book series. I think it’s such a sweet story about family and camaraderie and everyone using their strengths together for the greater good.

‘The Incredibles, which is a sort of animated version of it, is still one of my daughters’ favourite movies, I think because of the universal theme, and Escape From Planet Earth is very much like that – it’s about family togetherness, and putting family first, and that’s why I liked it in the first place.’

In addition to Escape From Planet Earth, Jessica recently reprised her role as Nancy Callahan in upcoming sequel to Sin City – A Dame To Kill For.

She said: ‘She was a really fun character to play again because she’s so different in this film – she’s really a mess. She’s an alcoholic, she’s depressed, so to play someone who’s so completely different to who I am – you know, I have a business, I have kids and I’m a wife and have responsibilities. So to play someone who was just a hot mess was really fun.

‘And then she avenges herself and turns her life around in this really cool, dark way, and becomes this warrior by the end.

‘So it was cool to be able to play someone who starts off as a mess and so self destructive and then by the end she is really taking control of her destiny.’

As well as her movie career, Jessica has had huge success with her company Honest, and is also kept busy with five-year-old Honor and her youngest daughter Haven, two.

But Jessica said she has managed to work out the best way to balance her work and personal lives.

She said: ‘It doesn’t really take that much time to do a movie. Some movies that I do I can do in a week, and you can shoot all of your stuff in that time.

‘And then others you can do two days here, two days there. I’m about to do two movies back to back but they’re both in LA and they’re both about four weeks each, and I think that’s all I’m going to do this year. It’s actually kind of okay.’

Escape From Planet Earth hits cinemas nationwide in the UK on March 7th.