A new Fantastic Four film is in the starting blocks and with it a fresh team of superheroes. When I looked at the first pictures of the action hit a few months ago and looked over the stars including Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, I had to think back to the film adaptations from the 2000s. A question came to mind more and more that I couldn’t answer at all: What does Jessica Alba actually do?who played the role of Sue Storm back then?
Two decades ago, the actress was one of Hollywood’s biggest film stars and was an integral part of blockbuster cinema. At the beginning of the 2010s, however, things became quiet around them. As it turns out, there were good reasons for that. This year Alba celebrated after a long break her big film comeback on Netflix ‒ and the next projects are already being planned. If you want to know what happened to Alba after Fantastic Four, this article is the right place for you.
Jessica Alba: From child star to short-lived blockbuster icon in Hollywood
Jessica Alba, who grew up in California, is said to have had a penchant for acting as a child. She secured her first role at the age of just 13 in the Nick series What’s wrong with Alex Mack?, from which she worked her way up through various supporting roles in television productions such as Flipper to larger films such as Unkissed alongside Drew Barrymore .
Alba landed her first leading role in the Sci-fi series Dark Angelwhich became a hit with critics and, created by James Cameron, is still considered a real cult format of the genre today. She finally made her breakthrough on the big screen with the leading role in the dance film Honey.
The actress reached the peak of her career in 2005 when she appeared in Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City and shortly afterwards took on the role of Sue Storm in Marvel’s Fantastic Four film adaptation. The action hit worth around 300 million US dollars catapulted Alba into the blockbuster ranks and at the same time made her the sex symbol of an entire generation. Between 2005 and 2009, she topped numerous top lists of the Sexiest People Alive given by magazines such as Empire – which, however, turned out to be a bad thing for Alba more of a curse than a blessing should emerge.
Sexualized and not taken seriously: Jessica Alba’s break with Hollywood
The idealized image of a great Hollywood career finally began to crumble for Alba in 2007 on the set of Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer, when director Tim Story made it clear to her during a scene that she should rather be beautiful than act emotionally. Here’s how she explained to Pop Eater in 2010 (via Vulture):
[Er sagte zu mir:] ‘It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you look prettier when you cry? Wine pretty, Jessica.’ He was like, ‘Don’t do that to your face. Just do it expressionless. We can add CGI to the tears.’
Alba then began to doubt her career and her work as an actress:
All of this made me think, ‘Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate me so much that they don’t want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person when I work?‘ And then I thought, ‘Fuck it. I don’t care about this business anymore.’
Back in 2006, according to Forbes, Alba had to contend with a lawsuit against Playboy magazine, which sought to boost sales by using a promotional image from Alba’s film Into the Blue as its cover, which implied nude images of the actress in the issue.
As early as 2005, she told Rolling Stone about her fear to only be typecast for certain roleswho put their sexual and physical assets in the foreground. Alba’s story is one that many women in Hollywood at the time could relate to. No wonder that the actress soon started looking for another calling.
Children and a new calling: Jessica Alba finds happiness away from Hollywood
The tide would turn in 2008 when Alba gave birth to her first child. As the Fantastic Four star explained in an interview with Romper in 2021, her priorities are said to have shifted massively at the time, as the birth of her child reminded her of her own difficult childhood:
My mother had cancer when she was young, in her early 20s. And I grew up with a chronic illness. I had five operations before I was eleven. I had chronic allergies and was often in the hospital as a child.
Her past motivated her to spend as much time as possible with her children as long as she was given the opportunity:
I had this moment of, I want to live, I want to surpass myself and Spend as much time as possible with this little personthat I bring into this world. My health plays a role. I want this little person to be happy. And it’s damn hard to be happy when you’re not healthy.
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Ultimately, Alba decided to take her newfound passion out into the world and founded the company in 2012 The Honest Companywhich sells, among other things, chemical-free care products for children and adults. Her acting career became more and more in the background, as she revealed to Romper:
My motivation wasn’t, ‘Will I ever be cast in a role again?’ To be honest, I was at the peak of my career back then. I couldn’t go back to what I was doing before and be authentic. I just didn’t care as much as I did before. It was about something bigger. If I have this big platform, what can I do with it that has meaning and creates a change. Despite everything, Jessica Alba has remained loyal to acting
Despite the huge success of their company, according to Stock Analysis 2021 to an incredible market value of 1.6 billion (!) US dollars came, Jessica Alba remained true to her first great passion – acting. Over the last ten years, she has appeared sporadically in films such as the Sin City sequel A Dame to Kill For and the Jason Statham thriller Mechanic: Resurrection. She also played the lead role of Nancy McKenna in the Sony-produced crime series LA’s Finest for two seasons.
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Alba was last seen in the Netflix thriller Trigger Warning, which premiered on the streamer in June 2024 and stayed at number 1 in the Netflix top 10 for several weeks despite miserable reviews. You can currently see the actress in the Honest Renovations documentary series which was recently renewed for a third season.
In it, Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis, founder of Cool Mom Co., surprise needy families with a home renovation. According to Alba, the show expands on the philosophy of her company, The Honest Company, which aims to improve people’s quality of life (via Forbes ).
In this country you can stream the documentary series with a subscription on Amazon Prime Video and RTL+, among others. Only time will tell what other projects we can expect from Jessica Alba – in front of and off camera.