No Worries, No Dramas
"I just did a totally Jessica thing!" she says. "I just walked in on someone in the men's restroom. I'm always doing things like that." You'd figure a man might mind if someone walks in on him in a one-man restroom at a sushi joint, unless, of course, the person doing the bursting in is the lovely Jessica Alba.
A sushi joint, however, is the last place you'd want to be if you were dating the 18-year-old actress. "When I was 12, I told my first boyfriend to shove a glob of wasabi in his mouth," she recalls. "'Do it for me!' I said. He did it and was choking for 20 minutes. I felt so bad." Luckily, he lived, as did Alba, who is one starring role opposite Drew Barrymore away from becoming a household name.
In Never Been Kissed, Alba plays a catty, over-the-top high school student who befriends an undercover reporter, played by Barrymore. "I play one of the girls who everyone hates at school but wishes they were," she says. "I definitely had that experience - wanting to be one of those girls."
The daughter of a Spanish/Mexican-American father and a French-Danish mother, Alba's slightly off-white appearance and Latina features are certainly easy on the eyes, making one wonder what exactly kept her from being one of those girls in the first place. Besides being a lot more endearing than one of those girls, maybe it's because Alba never really attended high school, instead finishing off the typically four-year jaunt in just two years of home schooling in order to concentrate on her acting.
Alba made her motion picture debut at 12 as a featured extra in the straight-to-video Camp Nowhere. After a major role in another unheard-of flick (P.U.N.K.S.), she nabbed a starring role on the television series Flipper, which called for a three-year relocation from Los Angeles to Brisbane, Australia. While Down Under, Alba picked up a bit of the local lingo. "I picked up 'no worries' there, but the funniest thing they say is 'no dramas,' recalls Alba.
"And they have something they call the 'Poppyseed Syndrome,' where they don't really like to glorify anyone. They think everyone is equal and treat everyone the same. I love that." After Flipper, she appeared in a few episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, before landing a role in Idle Hands - another new flick in which Alba plays the love interest of actor Devon Sawa, whose hand becomes possessed and goes on a killing spree.
But enough of Alba's acting résumé, let's get to the good stuff. What makes you weak in the knees? "I love it when older guys act like little kids." Something guys never do right? "They leave things hanging in the air and I feel like I have to entertain them. I like to be entertained sometimes." First kiss? "I was 7, I started early. I was a tomboy and I wanted to be on [this guy's] team in the neighborhood baseball games. They always picked me last and I was always on the sucky team and I wanted to be on the good team. So a bunch of people spent the night at my house on night and I said, 'I'll only kiss you if you pick me first.' I kissed him and the next day he didn't pick me and he treated me like crap!"
Despite that early life lesson, Alba isn't bitter toward men, In fact, she coyly and modestly claims that, like most stunning young femmes, men hardly even notice her. "I don't really get that many guys coming up to me for anything, I swear to you." Well, if those piercing brown eyes and perfect, full lips aren't reeling them in, maybe Alba's multinational make-up should be. After all, Spanish-Mexican-American-French-Danish chicks are hard to come by. "I'm like and oatmeal cookie." Got milk?
