The Fantastic Four Moment That Had Jessica Alba Questioning Her Career
In 2005 and in 2007, director Tim Story made a pair of feature films starring the Fantastic Four, one of Marvel Comics' most superlative titles. "Fantastic Four," created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was more or less a family sitcom except the three family members and their best friend all happened to have superpowers. It was light and comedic, while also featuring bloviating, demonstrative supervillains who shouted regularly about the glories of world domination. It was a comic book series that declared itself to be THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMICS MAGAZINE!
Story's feature film adaptations were not very well received when they were released. 2005's "Fantastic Four" only bears a 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while its sequel, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," only has a 38% approval rating. Moreso, Marvel Comics fans were harsh to Story's movies, hating their cartoony tone and corny scripts. It's worth acknowledging, however, that Story's films nailed the tone of Lee's and Kirby's 1960s comic books just right. The corniness was most certainly a feature and not a bug, and the interpersonal dynamics were nailed, even if the scripts were pretty clunky. Most notably, the casting was pretty spot on. The hotshot Human Torch was played by Chris Evans. The intellectual Mr. Fantastic was played by Ioan Gruffud. The gruff rock man The Thing was played by Michael Chiklis (in a very impressive practical makeup suit). And the collected, leadership-oriented Invisible Woman was played by Jessica Alba.
Alba, she has made clear, is no fan of the "Fantastic Four" movies, and even recalled a time while shooting "Silver Surfer" that made her doubt her entire craft. In a 2010 interview with Elle Magazine, quoted by Today, Alba recounted a piece of direction that broke her brain. Can one "cry pretty?"
Cry pretty
It's worth noting that Jessica Alba has struggled her whole life with how she looks. In 2006 she told Elle in a separate interview that she was rejected from her church because, they felt, she was trying to deliberately attract men. She was blamed for the way she looked and pilloried as a result. She also didn't like how the church eventually revealed itself to be judgmental and homophobic and handily left her faith behind.
By "Rise of the Silver Surfer," Alba had carved out an impressive film career, having appeared in hit films like "Never Been Kissed," "Idle Hands," "Honey," and "Sin City." She also, in 2000, starred in James Cameron's post-apocalyptic TV series "Dark Angel," so Alba was a household name. Alba assumed that she was hired for movies because of her talents, but Tim Story once gave her a piece of direction that had everything to do with her looks. It wasn't overtly sexist or creepy — Story is, by all accounts, a perfectly decent human being — but it did have Alba questioning what she was doing on set. She said:
"I remember when I was dying in 'Silver Surfer.' [...] The director was like, 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? ... Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.' [...] It all got me thinking: am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a real person? ... And so I just said, 'f*** it. I don't care about this business anymore.'"
Don't act. Just cry pretty. One can see how it might instigate an existential crisis.
Honestly
Alba also revealed that she was constantly discouraged from improvizing, something she felt should be an actor's stock in trade. She would, like co-stars she had previously witnessed, alter dialogue to feel more natural. It seems directors told her not to do that, shaking her confidence in her abilities.
Alba overcame the crisis and continued to act in feature films. She went on to appear in horror films like "The Eye" and "The Killer Inside Me," broad dumb comedies like "Good Luck Chuck" and "The Love Guru," and several of Robert Rodriguez's films, including "Machete," "Machete Kills," and "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World." Her last feature film was 2022's "Trigger Warning," and she was one of the two leads (with Gabrielle Union) of the 2019 cop series "L.A.'s Finest."
Notably, Alba also founded the Honest Company in 2011, an outfit that produces naturally-based baby products like diapers, shampoos, creams, lotions, and the like. The Honest Company, as of early 2022, was valued at half a billion dollars. It seems that Alba doesn't need to act to make ends meet. In 2022, /Film reported that she is currently in production on a Netflix series called "Confessions on the 7:45." Should she decide to retire entirely, one can take comfort in the fact that she will still be wealthy, healthy, and behind some of the best baby products on the market.