Here’s an excellent interview with Jessica Alba that appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Melbourne Herald Sun in Australia:

YOU say you are overworked, it’s time for a break. What will you do?

I might go to Europe on holiday, I’m not really sure how long, or where. I know I’ll be in France for a little while. I’m just feeling it out.

You interviewed your Fantastic Four co-star Chris Evans for a magazine, and he said he takes film jobs so the other six months of year he can travel and learn. Is that how you look at it too?

Totally. I’ve worked very hard for a long time, and you need some time to feed your soul and your brain and everything else. As much growth as you get from each experience in doing movies, it’s also important to have time for something else.

You also asked Chris about going against his nature to play beefcake roles . . .

Or just, you know, obviously he’s a very attractive guy.

But presumably you get the same thing, in that you’re a smart girl who is always offered roles that are . . . whatever the female equivalent of beefcake is?

(Laughs) You know, people’s perception of me is definitely more that way than the roles I actually play. ‘Cos the girls I play aren’t like that at all. People like to call me pin-up girl and all these things, but it’s a headline in a magazine more than it is about the work I actually do. Sue Storm (in Fantastic Four) is not at all like that, and neither are any of other the roles I’ve done — except for Nancy in Sin City, I guess. But you know, everyone in that movie, they’re all prostitutes, basically, who kill people (laughs). I was the only one who wasn’t!

Why did you choose Sin City?

I wanted to play the innocent. And before that I only did Dark Angel and Honey, so I wanted to do something completely different. So it’s funny how people’s perception is different than the work I actually do.

Do you still feel inexperienced?

Not even close. I’ve been doing this since I was 12 and I’m 26. I feel old actually, on set, even with people who are older than me, people who started working in their mid-20s.

Do you have a very strong vision for your career?

Yeah, I’m pretty clear-headed when it comes to that stuff. Certainly in (regards to) perception and doors I can open. Like, people may not be aware I’d like to do smaller movies or more character-driven stuff, because I’ve been in pretty commercial films so far. But I have a whole other side of work that I’m attracted to.

What’s been your biggest on-screen stretch so far?

I felt the most challenged in a horror movie I have coming out, a remake of a Chinese movie called The Eye. That was really hard. I had to play someone who was blind. I learnt how to read braille, and walk with a cane. I walked around my house a few times with the mask on . . . interesting, to live in a dark world. Your senses are completely altered. It’s a little claustrophobic. Then I had to learn how to play the violin, and I have never played an instrument in my life, so that took like six months (laughs).

Compared with that, was the new Fantastic Four film, Rise of the Silver Surfer, a holiday to shoot?

Yeah, Fantastic Four was good fun. Sue is a great role model for young women, and young men as a girl they would want in their life. Not a lot of movies have such a sweet message. It’s about the family and sticking together through thick and thin.

Does the maternal thing come naturally to you?

It actually does, yeah! I’m the oldest of 15 cousins and I’ve always been babysitting and changing nappies, and trying to guide my cousins in figuring out what they want from life.

So the guest list at your premieres is pretty long?

(Laughs) Well, I don’t take them to work. That would be a little crazy. I don’t know if they could handle the Albas — Hollywood’s not ready!

Sounds like an interesting family.

Everyone’s a star. I’m actually the least dramatic of everyone in my family — no joke. Everyone is on level 10 of drama, and I’m usually on level one . . . around the holidays two, but usually I’m a one.

Is that because you expel it through your day job?

Probably. I feel like that’s probably why I chose to be an actress. Everyone is such a star and has grand stories, and a lot of people in my family are musicians and painters and sculptors and do all these creative things, and I was always quiet in the corner when it came to that stuff. I did do my little performances with my cousins, but that was just expected.

So was your family surprised when you chose this career?

Oh hell yeah. My family, they did theatre, but Hollywood? The movie business? It’s so far-fetched. They thought it was a pipe dream, really until I did Dark Angel. That’s when it snapped in that this was a real job. My dad was like, “When are you gonna go back to school? When are you gonna find a real career path?” My grandfather wanted me to be a nun . . . so I left that idea far, far behind (laughs). Can you imagine? Oh God!

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer opens June 21.