Jessica Alba covers the July issue of InStyle. I like the cover shot a lot, even though she looks kind of pissed off. I think Alba just has RBF (resting bitchface) though. Alba actually covers InStyle because of a movie role, not because of the Honest Company. She’s been shilling the Honest Company in magazine interviews for a while now, but this time she’s shilling for her role in Mechanic: Resurrection. I know, I know, it’s the most anticipated movie of the summer! I’ve literally never heard of it before now. Anyway, Alba chats with InStyle about being a virgin in Hollywood when she was 19, her childhood asthma and more. Some highlights:
Breaking out at the age of 19: “My sexuality made me very uncomfortable. I remember my first Maxim shoot, they were telling me to pose a certain way, and I was like, ‘Agh! I’m 19. I’m a virgin. I don’t even know how to do that.’ It was so awkward.”
Being known as a sexy action heroine by the age of 25: “I sort of went through a life crisis. I was like, ‘This isn’t what I set out to be. I’m so much more than this, but I don’t know how not to be a sex symbol.'”
But she was always a tomboy: “The first time I wore a dress and heels, I had to go to the Golden Globes.”
She had a lot of health problems as a kid: “I was definitely born different. I loved to challenge authority. I was a very difficult child to parent. I was hyper. I didn’t sleep a lot. And being sick so often and being in and out of the hospital so much made it hard to form relationships.”
Even though it’s none of my business, I did have to check the timeline… Alba would have been 19 when she first started on Dark Angel with Michael Weatherly in 2000. Alba and Weatherly became engaged in 2001. Was Weatherly her first overall? Her first lover, her first boyfriend, her first everything? And he was 13 years older than her too. Huh. As for Alba’s discomfort at being sexualized, I think she’s probably one of those people who reads as “stuck up” when she’s actually just sort of insecure. That might be a new way of looking at Alba overall.
Photos courtesy of InStyle.
She’s super insecure. I listened to the Fantastic 4 DVD commentary once (don’t ask) and literally every second sentence she said was about how she looked bad in this scene, how she looked fat, how terrible her make-up was…it was annoying and she was clearly fishing for compliments from her co-stars, but still, from about 10 minutes in I just felt really, really sad for her.
Every woman I know who has met her says she’s a total B. I’m sure it is insecurity, though (certainly appearance-wise) she has nothing to be so insecure about.
Aw man. I love commentaries, they can be very intimate and revealing!
It would be hard to be insecure and hired as a prop in a film – you’d always feel unworthy, like you weren’t good enough.
She has also spoken about how she came from a family with a history of weight issues so she took charge of her own diet early on – I can see how that would impact your perception of yourself. She might have some tiny tinges of body dysmorphia happening – even though she is fit and healthy, in her eyes she might see flashes of her family
Didn’t bother me that she mentioned it, the make up she was complaining about made her look like an alien, whereas the person she had brought in made the attempt to play her as caucasian made it look more reasonable.
She and the other actors were made for a fun listen that didn’t veer to far off topic.
She’s said herself she was insecure until she went through her second pregnancy after which she was far more chill about her body but frankly when she was younger she had more reasons to feel shaky.
I saw her pics in a bikini a few months back and she def. wasn’t chill about her body though. She actually took a shirt and tied it around her butt qnd stomach between pictures.
It’s fake humility. She is just trying to appeal to normal people.
I feel bad that my first inclination was to doubt she was a virgin at 19, but I don’t know much about her. If she didn’t attend regular schools or date much I can see that, but she did explode in the scene in a very sexual way, so that comment surprised me.
I believe her. I was almost 19 when I lost mine, but as an outgoing first-year in college, people assumed I was sleeping around. They used my flirtations & looks to paint me as overly sexual despite my complete lack of experience… so I can’t imagine being in her shoes, drop dead gorgeous and objectified for a living.
I hope that first boyfriend didn’t contribute to her insecurities. :-/
I believe her because why lie? There’s no stigma about being sexually active at 19, and living in the dorms most everyone was – but certainly believable, when I think about it, that someone who wasn’t living a normal 19 year old life and possibly was still living with parents, might be a virgin. When Dark Angel premiered, I was in my mid twenties, living with male housemates who watched the show religiously, and at the time had someone told us she was a virgin, it would’ve been cause for much debate.
I was almost 19 as well. No snark there.
I don’t think being directed by James Cameron at such a young age helped but she handled it well considering.
Oh and was it true Weatherly used his relationship with Alba to force story changes then? I remember rumblings that he did but that’s all. Was his character supposed to die at the end of S1?
I know S2 had tonal changes forced on it by external circumstances and the network but I always wondered whether Logan was supposed to stick around or not. Tbh, I always thought he dragging the story too much, as I thought it made more sense to have Max move from place to place.
I believe her. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 19 and I had a number of friends who didn’t lose theirs until they were 18 or 19 as well. I don’t think it’s that unusual. I’m glad I was 19-it was the right age for me. I don’t know if I would have had the maturity to handle it if I were younger (I was a little immature and young for my age).
I don’t think being a virgin at 19 is unusual…
I went to an all-girl’s school and finishing school and starting Uni that way was totally normal.
Also, I remember reading Alba was quite sick as a child so she probably didn’t get out much.
I think it’s easy for a young actress to be portrayed in a sexual way and not necessarily mirrored in their personality
I was a model/actress from 14, did nude modelling, and was still a virgin into my 20s. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
If anything being in that sort of world might have the opposite effect since you get exposed to so many predators and stuff that makes you feel uncomfortable, and because you’re removed from the normal teen world of high school and dating. If the only males around you are men in the industry (ie older, often quite sleazy) your life is obviously going to be very different from a typical girl who’s around tons of regular boys her own age all the time.
That’s just me, I have no idea what Alba’s life or schooling was like.
I believe she had her vcard at 19. She always mentioned her parents’ Catholicism ( I remember noticing she got married before her first child arrived). I always assumed it was why she and Weatherly got engaged – because he was her first.
She said because she was taller and matured faster older guys used to hit on her because according to them ‘she looked older’, so she wasn’t a fan of the ‘sexy’ image early on and that’s probably why she was standoffish. I know I’ve done that.
Btw, does anyone know if it’s true that she was kidnapped once? Someone told me she got abducted off the set of Flipper but I’ve never heard it mentioned anywhere else.
Really? That’s interesting. Anyone know anything about the kidnapping story?
I find this refreshingly honest. I appreciate when people talk about how they waited until they were older. Waiting until you’re out of your early teen years for sex often means you’re a little older and wiser with your heart and feelings. I feel like often it’s an all or none discussion, but it doesn’t have to mean you’re preaching absinence or saving yourself for marriage.
Resting bitch face? No way. She has a very soft look. The girl is so beautiful in a very natural way and always looks great in clothes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad photo of her, but those photos in the magazine are gorgeous of her. That photo of her in the red is stunning.
Why, because you don’t think it’s real? Because it does exist…they are the people to whom we say,, “Smile! You look so glum/sad/tired/cranky etc”
It’s a real thing, and RBF is just as concise a way to describe it as any other term.
That wet hair on the cover looks awful and she gives me “special snowflake” vibes in this interview.
She’s always seemed pretty grounded and wholesome to me. I don’t think it’s an act. Sadly though, it’s so rare in Hollywood, we assume it’s insincere or fishing for compliments. Being that young, it wouldn’t matter how hot you were, being in that industry and at that time, with the likes Pamela Anderson, etc. it would be intimidating and make any young woman feel insecure. I’m just glad she didn’t plastic surgery herself into oblivion trying to look like other female celebrities who were nothiing but sex symbols.
I also appreciate her non-chalance regarding her experience or lack thereof. It doesn’t even necessarily mean it was all that purposeful or intentional like saving herself or beleifs. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen because…..life. I like that.
I remember there were a LOT of rumors about how creepy Alba’s relationship with Weatherly was back in the day – that she was a young kid with her first starring role, away from her family, under an enormous amount of pressure, and he was this dude in his 30’s, pressuring her to demand changes to the storylines by holding up filming, contributing to her eating disorder, bullying other actors on set, etc. And then the show was cancelled and he dumped her, because she was no longer useful in keeping him employed. I remember reading some insider reports from the studio/set, and it was all very sordid and gross.
yeah and unlike most teen shows with young protagonists, Dark Angel didn’t have any regulars close in age to Alba – no wonder it got bad for her.
I always thought the Weatherly/Alba relationship was really off, but I had no idea he was this much of a conniving asshole – what did the insider reports say?
It’s been a loooong time since I read them, and I think they were on TWoP, which is gone now, so I’m just going off what i remember here (and a lot of the stories were just about Weatherly, Alba, and James Cameron’s bad behavior leading to the show being cancelled).
Weatherly was very controlling with Alba in general, and used her to push producers into changing storylines to favor his character. Like, his character was supposed to die for her character at the end of season 1, but he got Alba to threaten to quit if that happened, so they had another character do it instead. There were a lot of claims of stuff like that, with him using Alba to change storylines. If that didn’t work, they would go to James Cameron and get him to demand the changes by appealing to his ego.
Weatherly was also very jealous of the actor who played Alec (younger and hotter), and would do things like count their lines in front of the entire cast and then demand he be given more lines if Alec had more, insisted on scenes being changed to make Logan look better (the specific one I remember is when they were playing pool, and he made them change it so that his character won the game, really petty shit). Alba also reportedly acted like a jerk to him, because the actor (Jensen Ackles) has publicly said that Alba approached him and apologized for the way she treated him years later.
Weatherly and Alba would hold up production by having sex in her trailer all the time. Alba’s eating disorder got so bad it also held up production because she couldn’t stop shaking.
I know the report concluded with them talking about how James Cameron, who had created the show and then peaced out, came back to direct the Season 2 finale, and changed the script around a bunch to make Weatherly’s character more heroic. Apparently they had a treatment for Season 3, which involved Weatherly’s character becoming an addict, and Alba’s character getting together with Ackles’ character, and Weatherly had Cameron demand changes and Fox, tired of dealing with the nonsense, just cancelled them instead.
Again, it’s been years since I read this report, so I’m sure I’ve jumbled some facts and omitted/added things. But the general gist was that Weatherly was a predator and an asshole, Alba was having a really rough time due to eating disorder/stress/Weatherly’s influence and acted out a lot, and Cameron was a misogynistic tool who saw Weatherly’s character as a self-insert.
@Irene
While I think there are bits of truth here and there, I find it hard to believe that a hitherto unknown actress on her breakthrough role has the leverage to throw her weight around. What weight? They could just write her out of the show and replace her with another young actress – it’s been done. Also wouldn’t she have had a contract and been unable to just up and quit let alone threaten it?
FOX were already ticked off with Cameron for going over budget on Titanic so that they – fearing it would be a white elephant – shared it with Paramount, and then when it was a huge hit and they had to share the profits so there was bad blood already. They were angling to tank the show towards the end anyway; changing its scheduling so much nobody knew when it was on half the time. FOX insisted on changes to the tone and narrative so that the first and second seasons were very different. And all this while rushing rewrites of the show they were planning to replace it with (which failed anyway).
Also, Cameron doesn’t like actors he thinks are pretty boys, the writing team created Alec, so between those two things and him being an implied love interest for Max, Cameron would have written him to the left no matter what. In addition to that: he felt the show was Max and Logan (when really it was just Max but whatever). And yeah, creepy the self-inserting between him and Eglee (who do I blame?) was creepy.
Do think I Weatherly was over and beyond, and not the greatest influence? Probably. Logan should never have been so central to the show, and in S2 his story made no real sense and several writing choices stood out as especially ridiculous. (I think even Alba decided she’d never date an actor again because of their relationship. So he gets additional side-eye on top of that predatory crap.)
Alba admitted to having an eating disorder at the time, probably not helped by the pressures and training for the role (or certain people always commenting on her physique).
Finally, if I remember anything about TWoP it’s how ott their adulation of Jensen Ackles is/was so I will always take any of their canonising of him with a pinch of salt even if Alba apologised to him. When they have their faves they’re obnoxious af about everybody else so it’s hard to take any rumour from there not supported independently elsewhere as questionable – and I’ve never heard these rumours from any other source, tbh.
@FF: I can picture Alba having traction, even early on. She WAS that show, and when it hit immediately it was hugely because of her (even with the Cameron name attached). They couldn’t have re-cast.
Of course, it all ended up going down in flames almost absurdly quickly.
Agree about the B-face. Totally.
But even though there are people who use ‘ insecure’ in a derogatory way to judge people, I do not see it as an insult or pathetic. I have been insecure myself when growing up and was judged as being all kind of things, from arrogant to stand-offish or disinterested.
I have explained to my kids ( girls 13yr and 15yr plus boy 13yr) many many times that kids and grown-ups do all kind of silly or mean things out of insecurity.
My daughter has made me very proud when she explained to us that her former friend started running with a crowd of unruly kids (doing stupid “cool” things such as skipping class or drinking beer) because of self-esteem issues. She realizes that it is important to remember your self-worth even if you don’t always feel that way.
Here in Europe we have major issues with teen girls texting semi-nude selfies to boys – often then shared/seen by hundreds of their peers in school.
I recently had a group of teen girls in my kitchen discussing those sending such pics simply because boys ask.
Did they say they are “hoochies” or “easy” or “cheap” ? No- they said they felt sorry for them because deep inside they were probably insecure enough to want to please a boy and be liked. Strong girls and I am happy about that, but I also see how they worry about leaving the house without lipgloss or mascara- OMG- someone could see them! My husband is flabbergasted at this sign of insecurity. Even my little “nerds” worry about their appearance daily.
People do the worst things out of insecurity: bully people, abuse partners, yell at employees – and also important: girls miss out on chances and or refuse to take risks to advance.
Accepting and understanding insecurity is vital in order to fight it.
It’s never been easy to be a girl or a woman and it doesn’t seem that times are getting easier.
I thought it was common knowledge that she was a virgin circa Dark Angel, and that Michael Weatherley was her ‘first’ – pretty sure she mentioned this before, way back. Which always seemed a bit dodgy to me, because she was so young at the time and he was so much older.
I always side-eyed that show for making him her love interest – I thought he was too old at the time (I still do – what were they thinking? But then, it was created by two older men so it all had an element of wish fulfilment). And then I side-eyed him for getting engaged to such a young girl.
Can’t say I wasn’t relieved they didn’t marry. She was too young.