Modern icons: This week Metro talks to elegant yet funky Hollywood actress Jessica Alba.

Heads turn as Jessica Alba breezes into the Beverly Hills hotel. A Californian native, it appears the 29-year-old inherited the perfect genetic combination from her Mexican/American father and her Danish/French/Canadian mother.

Now mother of Honor, aged two, Alba got her break in US sci-fi series Dark Angel, bringing a gritty sexiness to the role of renegade super soldier Max Guevara. Film roles followed, including Sin City, Fantastic 4 (where she met her producer husband Cash Warren), Into The Blue and Valentine’s Day. Alba also starred alongside Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck in The Killer Inside Me.

In her new film, Machete, Alba shares the screen with Lindsay Lohan and Robert De Niro and gets the chance to put her footwear to good use when she stabs her stiletto into her rival’s eye. ‘Yeah, walking in 3in heels wasn’t as much fun as putting one in someone’s eye,’ she laughs. ‘It was 104 degrees where we were shooting in Texas and they were not comfortable.’

Alba graced the cover of Playboy in 2006 and was voted ‘most desirable woman’ by Maxim in 2001. The list goes on but the sex symbol label doesn’t sit comfortably with Alba. ‘I don’t really pay attention to that sexy image,’ she says. ‘It just goes with the character in the movie. At the end of the day, it’s all a part of selling a product.

‘It’s always been weird because I grew up in a very traditional, Catholic household,’ she continues. ‘My parents were very strict but I broke away from that at an early age. I was a feminist when I was five. These days, I am much more liberal-minded but I still respect their beliefs.’

It may be sweltering outside but Alba is dressed simply in an off-the-rack grey woollen long-sleeved babydoll dress, black opaque tights and heels. Her flawless olive complexion is almost make-up free, just a dab of bronzer, some brown mascara and a slick of cherry lip gloss. And, after experiments with blonde in various film roles, Alba is back to her natural chestnut brown.

‘I’m enjoying being brunette again as I hate getting my roots done,’ she grins. ‘It was so annoying because that’s not who I am. I’m the girl who wears a pony tail and baseball cap every day.’

Alba’s style has always veered towards the understated: ‘Classic, elegant and a little funky,’ as she describes it. ‘Yeah, I’m kind of modest in my fashion choices: I’m not somebody who puts on push-up bras and mini-skirts. I’ve played those girls in movies but I’ve never been that girl.’

Like any girl, though, she still likes to dress up once in a while. ‘There’s not much I don’t like by Prada, especially their shoes and dresses. I like Marc Jacobs bags. For casual wear, I like Juicy Couture, Diesel and Triple 5 Soul. One of my favourite dresses was one by Versace which I wore to the MTV Movie Awards.’

In a world where skinny is revered, Alba once said: ‘Thank God for women with curves. I love women like Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé who embrace their curvaceous bodies.’ Today, she elaborates: ‘I’ve always had curves, especially since having Honor. I used to feel embarrassed by them but now I feel like a woman.’

Machete is out in cinemas on October 29

Source: Metro.co.uk

GORGEOUS Hollywood actress Jessica Alba doesn’t feel tied down and boring now she’s a mum. Quite the reverse, in fact – she’s turned into a party animal.

The 29-year-old Sin City star is mum to two-year-old Honor and married to producer Cash Warren.

But there’s nothing of the desperate housewives about her.

She said: “I think I’m a little more wild and free since I had her because once she’s in bed, all my mom friends, we get together and have dance parties at the house.

“It’s really dorky but I probably would have never done that before.

“No, I don’t go out. I hang out with my friends and I’m pretty chill.”

Given she is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women on the planet, was voted FHM’s sexiest woman in the world and was one of GQ Magazine’s 25 sexiest women in film of all time, it’s surprising Jessica never gets hit on in the street.

She revealed: “I don’t get asked out, ever. I always had a problem with that.”

We were dumbstruck, too. But then, Jessica is a woman of contradictions. Nowadays, she looks the embodiment of good health but her early life was filled with pain and illness.

During childhood, she suffered from collapsed lungs twice and had pneumonia four or five times a year, as well as a ruptured appendix and a tonsillar cyst.

It left her feeling lonely and isolated from schoolfriends, a situation not helped by the fact her dad was in the military and she moved around, attending a lot of different schools.

When she was able to go to school, the other pupils would often tease her because of the equipment she had to use to combat her asthma.

She said: “I would have asthma attacks and I would have a breathing machine that was really loud. And when I would play sports, I would be on the sidelines with my breathing machine.”

Now Jessica is teaching daughter Honor to be accepting of others and has shown those school bullies what she is capable of in a stream of action-packed films such as Fantastic Four and her latest, Machete. It also stars Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal and Miami Vice’s Don Johnson.
Continue reading Jessica Alba’s having more fun than ever since daughter’s birth

You’re so often complimented on your appearance. What’s a time you’ve felt insecure?

Pretty much every day on a movie set I feel a little bit insecure. Because I don’t want to disappoint the director or myself, so I’m always trying to do the best I can. I don’t know if it’s insecurity as much as just wanting to rise to the occasion and not let the filmmaker down or myself.

What did you think of Sandra Bullock accepting her Razzie award? You’ve been nominated for three.

I think it’s funny. It just shows how subjective everything is, and it also shows how you can be a great actor or actress and give a great performance, and it’s really about, at the end of the day, the way that they edit it together and promote the film.

You think the way your performance comes out has a lot to do with editing?

A lot of it has to do with editing, yeah.

Is there one you can look back on that you wish would have come out differently?

Um, yeah. Pretty much every one. [Laughs] It’s totally different when you work with great filmmakers, though, because they understand the nuances of a performance and they capture just another level. They’re not just throwing the movie together based on studio notes. They’re really looking at the characters and their motivation and the overall story. It’s a lot more complicated.

What’s something “Machete” shows of you that you haven’t done before?

Well, I’ve never played a Latin character in a film before. [Ed. Note: Alba’s father is Mexican-American.] Typically in the movies that I’ve read … Latin characters are very stereotypical. Very one-note. She can only be overtly sexy or she can only be this down-and-out maid or someone who isn’t necessarily as intelligent as other characters of different races or doesn’t have a great job. And to me, I couldn’t relate to it because the Latino women that I grew up with were all independent, they work hard, they raise their family, they are intelligent, sophisticated.

We asked readers for questions I should ask, and roughly half of them were if you would marry them. How do you feel about polygamy?

[Laughs] Um, I’m not really into polygamy, personally. It’s not really my bag of chips.

How many marriage proposals do you get per day? Have they gone up or down since you actually got married in 2008?

[Laughs] I don’t know. I guess I’ve had a few on Twitter. That’s kind of the only time I hear of marriage proposals. They’re silly; I mean, if it’s over Twitter and it’s someone I’ve never even met before, it’s kind of funny.

Someone said you should hide your looks, a la Charlize Theron in “Monster,” for people to pay attention to your acting ability. What do you think of that?

I think a lot of actresses have a difficult time being seen as anything more than the girl in the movie. And very few have broken the mold. It’s just a lack of material that is written for women, frankly.

You told Cosmopolitan you don’t consider yourself a great-looking person. What would have to change for you to feel that way?

I truly don’t put a lot of energy into it. I don’t think about it. For me it’s more important that I’m healthy and everything works and I can be a functioning person for my kid. And I’m grateful that, like I said, I have my health; that’s a big deal.

If someone is talking about you as an actress, what would you want them to say?

I don’t know. I don’t really care too much about what people think. Isn’t that terrible?

It seems like you do, though, and that you’re frustrated that people see actresses just for physical appearance and not for their abilities. What would you hope people would say about you as an actress?

“That was a good performance.” Or not. It’s so subjective. I don’t really put too much on it to be quite honest with you. And I don’t really care what people think. I love doing what I do. I feel so blessed that I get to do this for a living, and it sure beats a desk job because I would probably go crazy if I didn’t do anything creative with my time.

Your character in “Machete” has to be a little bit of a badass. How much of a badass do you consider yourself in real life?

In day-to-day life, [laughs] I don’t know. I think any working mom is a badass, frankly. Because it’s hard. And any woman who does it, or a father, any working father that is hands-on as a father and any working mom that’s hands-on as a mom, and also provides and works, it’s tough, it’s a tough balancing act. I think that’s the greatest challenge and that makes you the most badass person.

How much do you feel people fear you on the street as a result of that?

[Laughs] I don’t know if people fear me on the street. [Laughs]

They don’t say, “Watch out, working mom!”?

[Laughs] I say, “Watch out, working mom!” Even stay-at-home moms, they’re super badass. Anyone who understands that there’s a child that’s going to transcend you and is going to live longer than you and the real mark that you make, your legacy, is really how well you raise your kid and what you leave them with.

At home my fiancée does the laundry and I wash the dishes. How does the division of labor work at your house?

Well, I like to cook so it’s nice if one cooks, the other cleans. … As long as it’s equal and the work is divided up evenly, I think you’ll have a happy household. If it’s all on one person, it’s not so fun.

What’s your specialty as a cook?

I can kind of throw down almost anything. I’ve cooked Thai food, Italian; I like Mexican food, traditional American food. I’ve been grilling a lot because it’s the summer. I just got a pizza oven built, so I’m going to have to perfect my pizza bread recipe. I’m working on that one. You have to make a really good dough. The dough I think is the most important; not too thick, not too thin, a little crispy, doughy on the inside. But that takes years to perfect. So I’m working on that. And then you can put on any topping you want and it’s kind of the best thing ever.

As a California girl, how accurate do you find Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”?

I don’t know. I can’t really relate to that so much. I was never one of those California girls. [Laughs] I was kind of the teenager that wore black and kept to myself and didn’t have a ton of friends. I wasn’t like the hot cheerleader, smiley girl.

Surely this summer you must’ve melted some people’s Popsicles.

[Laughs] Well, I think the heat in California does that just fine. [Laughs]

On Chicago, where she filmed some of “Little Fockers”: “I love the steak. There’s great bars. I like taking a walk around in the city. I’ve been to some dive bars and then I’ve been to some nice restaurants, but I really couldn’t tell you any specifics. I just try out different things.”
The most interesting role she’s played: “The Killer Inside Me”
Favorite kinds of movies: Action and comedy
If she could work with anyone: James Cameron, Luc Besson, Robert Rodriguez, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro
Why her chosen superpower would be invisibility: “They can just move under the radar, and you can see people for who they really are instead of for the front that they put up.”
Her guilty pleasure: Getting a massage
TV addiction: “I Survived”

Source: MetroMix.com