Jessica Alba feels neither super, nor spy-like, as she sits in a downtown L.A. hotel suite. She's trying to be perky, promoting Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D, which opens Aug. 19. But the 30-year-old is just days away from giving birth to her second child, so she's completely distracted and totally tired.
"It's so exciting," she says of preparing for her baby's arrival. "But I'm ready and I'm exhausted."Alba is also resilient. She filmed the latest Spy Kids movie, including the action sequences, when her first child, Honor Marie, was only 1. In the Robert Rodriguez reboot of the Spy Kids series, Alba is Marissa Cortez Wilson, a famous spy and younger sister of Gregorio (Antonio Banderas) from the previous flicks.
Marissa decides to retire so she can raise her new baby, care for her stepkids Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook), and spend more time with her hubbie Wilbur, (Joel McHale). All that changes when her spy boss (Jeremy Piven) asks her to return full-time when the villain Timekeeper unleashes a plan to steal precious minutes from the world.
Things intensify when Marissa's husband gets a job on a reality-TV show as a spy hunter, then her stepkids, with assistance from the original Spy Kids, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara), get embroiled in tracking down the Timekeeper. Even Marissa's baby gets into it.
Wait a minute — there's the baby theme again. But it's not a coincidence. While filming Machete in 2009 — in which Alba co-starred — Rodriguez was inspired to pursue a Spy Kids film with Alba in the lead as a mother with a gun. "She had her baby with her," says Rodriguez of Alba's daughter on the Machete set. "And her diaper exploded, and she was trying to change her baby, and I thought, 'What about a spy mom?'"Alba agreed. After all, the director and the actress have a strong bond.
She played the vamp Nancy Callahan in Rodriguez's stylish 2005 crime noir, Sin City, and they re-connected in last year's hitman fantasy, Machete, with Alba playing Special Agent Sartana Rivera.
"We come from a similar cultural background," says Alba of her friend, Rodriguez. "We're both Mexican-American, and we grew up with a lot of the same traditions, and we share stories. So, I think we have a comfort and a shorthand."
But Rodriguez knew he had to "keep raising the bar" for Spy Kids. The first Spy Kids flick in 2001 was a surprise hit, earning $148 million US worldwide and charming critics. The followup sequels, Spy Kids: Island of Lost Dreams, in 2002, and 2003's Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, scooped up a combined $317 million US globally.
The fourth Spy Kids flick features more refined special effects, and a nostalgic scratch-and-sniff gimmick that Rodriguez calls 4-D Aromascope. During the film, when numbers flash on screen, audience members are required to rub the corresponding numbers on an Aromascope card, which will give off a smell relating to the sequence.
It's a playful device, but that doesn't mean the director holds back on the intensity of the action sequences or the spy-mom narrative. "Yeah, I definitely brought a lot of my experience of being a new mom with a baby to work every day," says the actress. "I talked to Robert (Rodriguez) a lot about it. He's a father of five, so he has tons of experience with children, too."Obviously, the mutual respect between them runs deep.
"I also trust him, so I'm not sitting there, resisting everything he says, and fighting and arguing with him," says Alba. "We don't have that relationship, although sometimes I disagree. But most of the time, we find some common ground."In fact, Alba has a team-player reputation, which has served her well over a fairly high-profile career.
Obsessed with acting at an early age, Alba started auditioning at 11, and managed a small role in 1994's Camp Nowhere. She enjoyed two seasons in the remake of the Flipper TV series, and in 1999, gained some notoriety with co-starring roles in Drew Barrymore's Never Been Kissed and the horror comedy, Idle Hands.
It was her headlining part in the James Cameron sci-fi series, Dark Angel, that showcased Alba's abilities and her athleticism, even more than the superhero role of the Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four films.
"That show (Dark Angel) was the most challenging thing ever," Alba recalls. "Nothing has compared to it since, and, oddly, I miss it."Indeed, after she gets settled with baby number 2, she'll be looking around for an action flick with Dark Angel intensity.
And who knows, Rodriguez just might increase her running and kicking duties in a planned Sin City 2, and yet another Machete. The director says either project might be his next one. Meanwhile, Alba will be nesting for a while with husband, Michael Warren, daughter Honor, and the new kid on the block.
"It's always changing, and always challenging," she says of her professional-personal double life. "I always feel like I'm sacrificing one thing for the other. "I never feel like I have a perfect balance," she adds. '"But that's just what happens when you're a working mom."