KEEPING THINGS HONEST
Having played an action star, a sex symbol and a superhero, former child actor Jessica Alba has always defied typecasting. Now she’s a TV producer, founder of her own business empire and a mother of three who’s happiest when she’s super-busy.
“When I became a mum, my priority in Hollywood took on a different weight.”
JESSICA ALBA
Ilast met Jessica Alba at the headquarters of The Honest Company, the start-up she co-founded in 2011 providing eco-friendly, non-toxic personal care products. Alba was heavily pregnant with her third child at the time and we walked (she hobbled) around her impressive Los Angeles offices. Now, 18 months later, with a new TV show, L.A.’s Finest, in which she stars and produces, this multi-tasker extraordinaire knows how to keep the plates spinning in her ever-expanding orbit. Alba, 38, is wife, mother, movie star, producer and entrepreneur, all the while sitting atop the world’s Most Beautiful/Sexy lists. To her credit, though, she has never relied on her celebrated genes to do the heavy lifting. Pragmatic and insightful, she was aware that good looks would only get her so far.
“I’ve always pushed the stereotype. When I was doing Dark Angel, I was a tomboy, action person,” she says, referring to her breakout role in the TV show she starred in from 2000-2002. “I also did the movie Honey, a dance movie for girls, even though at the time I was offered a bunch of action, bad-ass, sexy thrillers. And then I did a family movie, Fantastic Four, and played a superhero.
“So, I feel I’ve been able to break out of a mould and not feel stuck. When I became a mum, my priority in Hollywood took on a different weight. I wanted to have a personal life, have relationships, which I never got to do because I’d been acting since I was 12 [her first role was in 1994’s Camp Nowhere]. I was living a very nomadic life.
“I didn’t have birthdays where I’d be surrounded by friends and loved ones. Not that I didn’t have a family, but I never saw them. And so, when I had Honor [her firstborn], I made a choice to create a life outside of my career, and then creating ‘Honest’ was an extension of that.”
Alba recently celebrated her 11th wedding anniversary to talent agent Cash Warren, with whom she is raising their three children: daughters, Honor, 11, and Haven, seven, and son, Hayes, one.
“I’m so tired! So tired! I have two jobs and three kids,” she says, with a sleepy smile. “But I have to say, my heart’s full, so that’s the give and take.”
It’s 9am at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills and some of her family are tucked away upstairs in their suite, sleeping. “My seven-year-old is here because she woke up sick this morning,” she explains, “and my baby is with her as well. I’m really hoping she’s not coughing on him.”
Yawning, she says, “I don’t sleep much and sometimes I spin myself into oblivion. Even when I am laying down in bed, I’m thinking of everything that’s going on.”
Now with a little boy who has joined the female-centric family, she says, “He really loves his daddy, I think maybe more than me, which is really annoying.” She laughs. “And I thought I was going to have this boy who was going to be super into me. But it just makes me fall in love with my husband even more, which is also annoying! I’m like, ‘How is this possible? You’re getting better!’”
Has she considered the possibility of baby number four? “Oh, dear God!” she laughs. “You know what? I wish I liked being pregnant more. I thought I would, but I just really don’t like it. And I’m getting up there in age. But I do really love babies – though kids are a pain in the ass.” She leans forward, probably worrying how that last comment might sound in print. “You know I’m kidding, right?” As a mother of two daughters myself, I know that she’s only half-kidding, though I nod in agreement. “I just don’t know if I have it in me,” she says, candidly. A straight shooter, she’ll always give you a direct answer, without any interruption from her publicist.
Somehow, between her many and varied obligations, she has found time to return to TV as star and producer of L.A.’s Finest, a buddy cop series with Gabrielle Union as her on-screen partner.
“The last time I signed a television contract was for Dark Angel… But now, as a producer, I’m part of the edit, and I helped co-create and develop my character. That was the major difference.”
WOMEN PLAYING ‘MALE’ ROLES
L.A.’s Finest is a spin-off from the action blockbuster franchise, Bad Boys. We joke that if her partner had been a man, the buddy relationship would likely have culminated in one of a sexual nature. She says, “Right. That’s what movies have done to us. You’ve seen men in roles like these a lot, in Bad Boys, Lethal Weapon, Men in Black. You don’t usually get to see women have fun in these action roles, so it was cool that we have two women play the kind of characters that are usually written for men.”
It’s a role that suits her down to the ground. “I never thought, ‘Oh, I want to be the girl in Top Gun’ because I wanted to be the guy flying the plane in Top Gun. I didn’t
want to be the girl who was saved by Spider-Man, I wanted to be Spider-Man. I wanted to be Bruce Willis in Die Hard. I never aspired to be the damsel in distress or the disgruntled worker, I always wanted to be the person that was in the action, in the mix, had the fun jokes, had the banter.”
Her mobile phone rings and she glances at the call. “Oh, it’s my brother,” she says and shuts it off. She leans forward: “I don’t know if you know this, but he’s in the show. He actually plays my brother.”
It was news to me that her younger brother, Joshua, is an actor. “He’s not. He oversees construction of cellphone towers, but he wanted to audition to play this role. He was an aspiring actor a long time ago.”
Apparently, for Alba, nepotism is not a dirty word. She shakes her head. “No, here’s the thing. I’m a tough-love person. He went through the normal process and got the role on his own. I asked the casting people if they really wanted him, and they said he was really good.”
Alba is disarming, approachable and ensures her movie-star status doesn’t prevent regular interactions with people. In illustrating the kind of rarity Alba is in Hollywood, an incident comes to mind that happened nearly a decade ago. Alba stood behind me and my daughter in line at LAX Airport going through security. Devoid of any entourage, Alba walked through the X-ray machine, no fuss, though it wouldn’t have been unusual for a celebrity of her status to ask for special treatment.
Not wanting to bother her, I decided not to acknowledge her, though I’d interviewed her many times. In my experience, most celebrities would rather fly under the radar than have to engage in polite conversation.
To my surprise, while I was retrieving my belongings, Alba had approached my then 14-year-old daughter and introduced herself (while a group of curious onlookers watched intently) and told her how much she had enjoyed talking to her journalist mum over the years. It was a scenario that never happens.
It’s this attitude that makes her as popular with a film crew on set as she is with the office workers at The Honest Company. She’s certainly a considerate boss, a fact confirmed by a trip to the bathroom of her offices, where the shelves are stocked with deodorant, tampons, wipes and moisturisers, positioned in a layout you might organise in your own home.
“I wanted to make an office environment like an Honest home and to bring to life the products in a way, so they’re not just lined up on the shelves but really immersing people in the Honest way of life.”
There’s an adjoining room for nursing mothers, decked out with candles and sofas. “If you’re a nursing mom, you can come in here and have a nice experience. It’s a calm, good, positive energy. I also took sage throughout the whole office, actually.” She laughs.
Only a woman with breastfeeding experience (particularly in the US, where it’s frowned upon to do so in public), understands the value of a room like the one she’s created for her staff. “When I was breastfeeding, I was also pumping [milk] in bathrooms, sitting in a bathroom stall on a toilet. That’s disgusting. So, I am really proud of this room,” she said during my visit.
Five years since the inception of The Honest Company, its value has skyrocketed to A$1.44 billion – but it hasn’t been without its problems. In 2015, The Honest Company was sued by a customer who claimed the sunscreen didn’t work and its ingredients weren’t all “natural”. The following year, the Organic Consumers Association filed a suit claiming that the baby formula was not made with organic-only ingredients. While claims about the sunscreen are ongoing, the baby formula case was dismissed. Additionally, Honest agreed to pay a A$2.23 million class action settlement in response to claims of “dishonest advertising” about the ingredients in its cleaning products, though the accusations have been vigorously denied by the company.
CONTROVERSY COMES WITH CELEBRITY
Like all successful celebrities, Alba is familiar with controversy. She sighs. “I deal with the media, whether they are talking about my company or me as an actress. Everyone loves a salacious headline, it gets the most clicks – the meat of the story doesn’t really have to be truthful and it doesn’t matter. And usually if something is in print and someone sees a headline, most people just take it as a fact and don’t look into seeing if it’s real or not.” She adds matter-of-factly, “I have developed a thick skin.”
It’s interesting that Alba, with a reported personal wealth of A$489 million, takes on so much when she could so easily take it easy – as much as any mum-of-three can ‘take it easy’. “I know, I should, I should,” she nods. What does Alba do after a long day at the office or on set?
“I take a bath. That is my time!” she laughs.
As a successful movie star and businesswoman from humble beginnings, her good fortune is not lost on her. “I come from a home where we didn’t have any money. I feel very fortunate that I am able to give my children a life where I am not arguing with my husband about money, or having to worry about whether I can pay the bills, or if the power is going to be turned off, or how will I put food on the table.”
Despite her children growing up in a privileged household, she says, “They are responsible kids. They have to respect their elders and they still have to be good people. But not having to expose them to that type of financial stress is something for which I am very grateful.”
She considers a time in the future when she may want to slow down. “You know what? As I said, I came from nothing, literally, no safety net, nothing. And so I have a really hard time trusting stillness, I have a hard time with breathing,” she says. “I guess I’ve just never done it or haven’t done it enough. I feel like the only time I’ve ever allowed myself stillness or a moment to breathe is my last month of pregnancy with all three of my kids, as well as their first month in the world, probably because I was so tired that my body just stopped.
“And then I just got to look at a little person and cuddle them and breastfeed them and cry with them, and wake up and look at them and change their butt and feed them. It’s just such a very simple thing. But yeah, I wish I knew how to be more still.” She smiles.
“Maybe as I grow up and learn and evolve, I’ll allow for that to happen one day.”
“I didn’t want to be the girl saved by Spider-Man … I wanted to be Spider-Man.”
JESSICA ALBA