The Eye - Jessica Alba interview
Interview by Rob Carnevale
JESSICA Alba talks about some of the research she did for her role in horror remake The Eye, including coping with blindness and playing the violin. She also talks about the appeal of Asian horror movies for Hollywood actresses.
She also talks about becoming a mother and juggling it with her career, appearing in The Love Guru with Justin Timberlake and Sir Ben Kingsley and the actresses that inspire her…
Q. How much research did you do for the role, both in terms of blindness and learning to play the violin?
Jessica Alba: I did quite a bit of training for the blindness and the violin playing. For the blindness in particular I went to two blindness orientation centres, one in LA and one in New Mexico, and I learned basic Braille reading, I learned how to walk with the cane, I learned how people live in their homes independently and self-sufficiently. I also labelled everything in my house so I could walk freely around without sight, so I did a lot of practice that way and I also spent a lot of time with a woman who is around my age who is a musician herself… she’s a vocalist and she has been blind since she was three but she travels all around the world on her own. She doesn’t have a guide or a dog, but she’s doing a Masters programme at Boston University and takes taxis, subways, planes, everything… she’s living her life just like anyone else but she’s blind. Just observing her and spending time with her, she was pretty much my inspiration for my character.
Q. Did her independence surprise you?
Jessica Alba: Yeah, I mean I haven’t come into contact with many people who have blindness and I thought it was much more of a handicap. I didn’t think they could live as normal a life as someone who isn’t blind can – but you can live on your own, you can hold down most jobs, and it’s really other people’s perceptions and how other people deal with it that makes it an issue. She really had no issue with it at all and was quite happy with her life. She just thought that it was the way that God made her and that she was special.
Q. Could you ever pack up acting to become a violinist?
Jessica Alba: [Laughs] No way, it’s the most difficult instrument on the planet. It is so hard to learn. I did six months of extensive training with three different violin teachers. And these are women that have been playing since they were three, all of them, and they all play in orchestras and are accomplished musicians and yet they still practice eight hours a day! I just simply don’t have that amount of dedication to be honest.
Q. Did you find yourself practising the violin while making Fantastic Four, still in costume?
Jessica Alba: I would, yes. I just didn’t have time to take off that suit, so in my Sue Storm outfit I was hacking away on my violin in front of my poor animals. They probably suffered the most, my dogs, because they were in the trailer with me all the time and they would either cover their ears or run to the back of the trailer. They disliked it so much.
Q. Would you agree that modern horror films, and especially Asian remakes, offer actresses a stronger leading role?
Jessica Alba: They do. I didn’t know the movie was a remake of a Chinese movie until I’d read the script and in the outline they said it was a remake. I saw the original just to understand where they were coming from and how much the script differed from the original. It was the most interesting female role that I read. A lot of horror films, with the exception of films like Dark Water and The Ring, are girls running away from a guy who is going to torture them, or is torturing them, or kidnapping them. They take much more of a victim stance when it comes to the female character and it usually involves crying and screaming and crying and screaming. This was playing a blind violinist and someone who was losing their mind. I thought that was much more interesting to play for me than crying and screaming. You go on the journey with the character and by seeing through her perspective you really empathise with what she’s going through.
One of the biggest reasons I wanted to go with Xavier [Palud] and David [Moreau] to direct the film was because they did a little film in France called Ils, or Them, which basically wasn’t heavy in plot, wasn’t heavy in dialogue but you’re going through this terrifying experience through the character’s point of view, seeing limited things, only really what they saw. To me, the anticipation of not knowing what was behind that door, was really good. It kept you on the edge of your seat, and that’s what I wanted people to go through in this movie.
Q. What are your own favourite horror movies?
Jessica Alba: One of the first movies I ever remember watching was A Nightmare on Elm Street, the first one with Johnny Depp. But I like Psycho, The Birds, It, Poltergeist, Rosemary’s Baby, The Ring, those kind of movies are more my speed than people being chopped up into bits.
Q. How old were you when you saw A Nightmare On Elm Street?*
Jessica Alba: [Smiles] I think I was about four and a half and it gave me nightmares until I was 13. My parents didn’t know, nor did they approve, obviously. I was a sneaky child and hid behind the couch and watched the whole thing and then insisted on sleeping in bed with them. If I was going to be sucked into the bed it was going to be with them.
Q. Do you believe in ghosts?
Jessica Alba: My parents had a house that was haunted when I was a kid. I didn’t see a ghost but in the middle of the night faucets [taps] would turn on throughout the house, the back door and front door would open, and all the televisions in the house would turn on to maximum volume. At first I thought my brother’s friend was playing a joke on us but it happened so frequently that everyone came to the conclusion that it was something supernatural.
Q. Is it a bad time to be pregnant now you’re such big box office?
Jessica Alba: Well, I planned on taking a break because I’d worked for nearly two years without one, so I’d always planned on taking a break after finishing The Love Guru and, coincidentally, I was pregnant so it just kinda worked out. It was during “the strike”, so things were slow in the business anyway, so the timing just seemed to fall into place. I have one more film coming out in the summer, with Mike Myers, but other than that I’m not really sure what the future holds.
Q. Can we expect a baby boom in Hollywood because of the writers’ strike?
Jessica Alba: [Laughs] It seems like there are a lot of people having babies.
Q. Will being a mum change the roles you take?
Jessica Alba: Sure, I think this is a life altering experience and to say that it’s not going to influence decisions that I make would be crazy. I’m already a different person and the baby hasn’t come yet, so I’m sure that when the baby is here my priorities will shift even more and spending time away from your child and at work it has to be well worth it.
Q. Are you worried that pregnancy will mean you’ll lose your place in the Hollywood pecking order?
Jessica Alba: I’m not too concerned. I know how fickle and silly this business is. I know it can take one movie to put you back up and that you can have five that are great movies, that no one sees, and you’re down in the gutter again where you can’t pay someone to give you a film. It’s so fickle that you must get on with your life and keep your priorities straight otherwise you’ll just go insane.
Q. How do you see your career developing?
Jessica Alba: I kind of feel I’m only just starting. For me, most actresses that I really love hit their stride in their 30s and 40s and I’m hoping that will be the case for me. This is the beginning of my career, my journey, into this business and I’ve done many different things, fun, silly things and I’m hoping that it will continue to stay exciting and the variety will be there. I want to get something in development to produce, that’s my next goal that I’m setting. But it would also be nice to do stuff that isn’t so commercial and doesn’t have to rely on the box office so much.
Q. Who are the actresses in their 30s and 40s that inspire you?
Jessica Alba: People like Jennifer Connelly, Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep. I just think there is so much depth and richness and maturity in women in their 30s and 40s.
Q. Did you get to say ‘hi’ to Cate Blanchett at the Oscars?
Jessica Alba: [Blushes] We were on opposite sides of the room but I did smile at her. I think those people are so swamped at awards ceremonies with people telling them: “I think you’re great!” Or: “I love your work!” I just like to say “hi” and then run off and find my fiancé and say: “Guess who I just met?”
Q. How do Justin Timberlake and Sir Ben Kingsley compare as co-stars [in The Love Guru]?
Jessica Alba: I didn’t share any scenes with Justin, I just saw his dailies, it was like a running thing on set, people would just play Justin’s dailies back over and over again and have a good laugh because he was ridiculous, he looks so silly. He wears a moustache, he looks like a 70s porn star and he’s a hockey player with a hugely inflated ego and he’s really stupid. He’s just really funny in the movie. He also wears furs… he’s just ridiculous. So he was great. I did spend some time with Sir Ben and he’s very handsome… very [breaks out in fits of giggles] charismatic. I was pretty happy to hang out with him all day. To talk to someone who has been in the business for so long, and he’s East Indian and Caucasian, he’s mixed, and he said he’s the only person to play these legendary characters like Hamlet and then Ghandi… the fact that he’s such variety in his career is fantastic. So, it was fun to hang out with him, I just picked his brain the whole time.
Q. What’s the status of Sin City 2?
Jessica Alba: I really don’t know anything about it. I hear more about it from journalists and on IMDB [website] than I do from the director, producer or anything.