Jessica Alba

Jessica Marie Alba (born April 28, 1981) is an American television and film actress. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994). Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002). Alba later appeared in various films including Honey (2003), Sin City (2005), Fantastic Four (2005), Into the Blue (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Good Luck Chuck both in 2007.

Alba appears frequently on the "Hot 100" section of Maxim and was voted AskMen.com's number one on their list of "99 Most Desirable Women" in 2006, as well as "Sexiest Woman in the World" by FHM in 2007. She also appeared on the cover of Playboy on March 2006, which was followed by a lawsuit, which was later dropped. Alba has won various awards for her acting, including the Choice Actress Teen Choice Award and Saturn Award for Best Actress (TV) for her acting in the series Dark Angel.

EARLY LIFE:
Alba was born in Pomona, California to Catherine Alba (née Jensen) and Mark Alba. Her mother is of Danish and French Canadian descent. Her father is of Mexican American descent. Both of her paternal grandparents were born in California. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas before settling back in California when she was nine years old.

Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies; she suffered collapsed lungs twice, had pneumonia 4-5 times a year, a ruptured appendix, and a tonsillar cyst. This isolated her from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has also acknowledged suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder during childhood. Her health improved, however, when her family moved to California. She graduated from high school at age 16, and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.

CAREER:
Alba expressed interest in acting since the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, California whose grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job in a leading role when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.

Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J.C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.

In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 and as Layla in an episode of The Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was Developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet.

Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique in the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, and as the female lead in the 1999 comedy-horror film Idle Hands, opposite Devon Sawa.

Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically-engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002, earning her critical acclaim as well as a Golden Globe nomination. Alba later revealed that she had suffered from an eating disorder while in preparation for Dark Angel.

Alba's most notable film roles have included an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City and as the classic Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four, of which movie critic Mick LaSalle said that her performance while talking for long periods of time was on "shaky ground". She then appeared in its sequel, in Into the Blue later that year, and Good Luck Chuck a few years later. Alba went on to host the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission Impossible 3, and The Da Vinci Code.

In 2008, Alba appeared in her first horror-film role in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. In February, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences's Science and Technical Awards. Later in the year, she starred in The Love Guru. She has signed on to star in An Invisible Sign of My Own to be released in 2009.



News | What members say | Filmography

Jessica Alba - news / articles

Jessica Alba - what members say

Jessica Alba - filmography

5 most recent films

Escape from Planet Earth - 4.0 stars
Spy Kids 4 - All The Time In The World - 3.0 stars
An Invisible Sign - 2.5 stars
Spy Kids 4 - All The Time In The World - Blu-ray - 3.0 stars
The Killer Inside Me - Blu-ray - 3.0 stars

5 highest-rated films

Sin City - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars
Sin City - Restored Theatrical Version - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars
Sin City - Recut, Extended, Unrated Version - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars
Dark Angel - Season 2 - 4.0 stars
Dark Angel - Season 1 - 3.5 stars

5 lowest-rated films

An Invisible Sign - 2.5 stars
The Secret World of Alex Mack - 3.0 stars
Meet Bill - 3.5 stars
Escape from Planet Earth - 4.0 stars
Paranoid - 2.0 stars

Most frequent co-stars

Alimi Ballard - 14 times - show films
Michael Weatherly - 14 times - show films
Jennifer Blanc - 14 times - show films
Mickey Rourke - 6 times - show films
Clive Owen - 6 times - show films

Most frequent directors

none - 14 times - show films
Robert Rodriguez - 12 times - show films
Frank Miller - 7 times - show films
Quentin Tarant - 6 times - show films
Tim Story - 4 times - show films