Jessica Alba is featured on the cover and in the pages of the February issue of Elle magazine. In addition to talking about her happy family life with hubby Cash Warren and babygirl Honor Marie, Jessica waxes nostalgic about the previous roles that won her stardom and what her plans are for the future. Here is Jessica’s sexy, 60’sesque coverphoto and a portion of her coverstory:

At Alba’s last ELLE shoot, for the February 2008 cover, she had just reunited with her producer boyfriend, Cash Warren (after their bad breakup), and was hiding a surprise pregnancy. One year later, she’s a wife and mother. (And, it turns out, still keeping secrets: this time, the party she and Warren would throw two weeks after this interview, officially celebrating their eight-month-old marriage.) That would be a fast-forward for anyone; it’s an especially significant priority shift for someone who became a card-carrying SAG member at the age of 12 (for the kiddie comedy Camp Nowhere). By the time she landed the role of a genetically enhanced underworld avenger on the TV show Dark Angel at 14, the lithe, doe-eyed child actor had become a teen sex symbol in leather pants—an image that has rankled Alba ever since. Still, her next few films did little to reverse it. She played a bleached-blond scientist in navy neoprene—endowed, ironically, with the superpower of invisibility— in both Fantastic Four movies and a hip bone–shimmying dancer who teaches Missy Elliot moves in Honey. Then there was Sin City’s stripper with a heart of gold (in fringed chaps and a push-up bra). When none of these shook off her pretty-girl shackles, Alba dove into comedy, first opposite an extra-grating Dane Cook in Good Luck Chuck and then in last year’s The Love Guru, a Deepak Chopra spoof that could have been Mike Myers’ next Austin Powers but, well, wasn’t—both movies might have been funnier if they had actually allowed their leading lady to crack a joke once in a while. And so, 15 years into a successful career, Alba’s looks are still hogging the spotlight. Rapturous fans idolize her pillowy lips, her gleaming skin—hell, even her nose was ranked by L.A. plastic surgeons as the most requested model of 2007. It stands to reason, then, that the film that finally obscures those heavenly features is the one of which she’s most proud. The upcoming indie An Invisible Sign of My Own employs the Halle-Nicole-Charlize highlight-talent-by-burying-looks strategy, but instead of adding a prosthetic nose or 35 extra pounds, Alba is shrouded in a mousy amalgam of pigtails, floppy hats, and schlumpy layers to achieve a look the actress calls “grandma meets 10-year-old.” Alba plays Mona Gray, a naive, reclusive woman whose obsession with numbers leads her to take a job as a math teacher; the film follows Mona as she breaks out of her childlike shell and learns to embrace the outside world. The role is, by all accounts, a more demanding, complex journey than any Alba has ever embodied on-screen. “I really did not picture her as the lead in this film,” says director Marilyn Agrelo, who is best known for the culty child-performer documentary Mad Hot Ballroom. “I knew her as a piece of pop culture, Fantastic Four, this sort of thing.” In a single meeting, Alba won Agrelo over. “I was so surprised by her intelligence, her thoughtfulness, her poise,” Agrelo says. “She’s a real, flesh-and-blood, fully realized woman.” Costar Chris Messina (the preppy fiancé from Vicky Cristina Barcelona), who plays a science teacher who becomes Mona’s love interest, describes Alba’s work in the film as “magnificent.” “Jessica’s a beautiful woman, so this business is going to want to put her in a bikini or put a gun in her hand, but she’s just more than that,” Messina says. “It seemed to me that she really seized this.” The result, according to Agrelo, is a performance that could change the course of Alba’s career. “I remember when Pulp Fiction opened, and people kind of laughed at the idea of John Travolta in that role. He blew everybody away,” she says. “When things like that happen, it’s wonderful. And it’s so rare that you get to be the one who pulls the surprise out of the hat.” Messina refers to the actress-mom-wife “Jessica” and pop culture property “Jessica Alba,” as if they were totally unrelated entities. The woman who shows up to brunch the morning after our shoot is a bit of both. She arrives early, dressed in Olsen-sister incognito (boyfriend jeans, mannish brogues, fingerless gloves), at the chaotic TriBeCa comfort food spot Bubby’s. It’s the kind of place where, on weekends at least, lines are nightmarish, children outnumber adults, and the surrounding sidewalk is a veritable Bugaboo parking lot—and that’s exactly what Alba likes about it. (“There aren’t that many places where you don’t have to feel bad when your kid has a meltdown,” she says. “Plus, there’s a changing table downstairs.”) Today, Jessica is friendly and warm, but make no mistake, Jessica Alba—the guarded professional who works hard to defend the boundaries between personal and private—is in the driver’s seat.

Firstly, I think it would’ve been wiser to totally disregard Alba’s co-starring role in The Love Guru — the more we try to forget that horrendousness, the better for mankind. After the jump, check out a couple more photos of Jessica from this issue of Elle magazine …

I have to say that I’m very suspicious of this “career-changing” role that is coming up for Alba. Let’s face it, judging by some of the movies she’s appeared in (F4, F4:2, The Eye, etc.) I haven’t really seen anything that might hint at stunning acting prowess … but, I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. There are a lot of Jessica Alba haters out there — and truth be told, I can understand why — but I’ve got a soft spot for her, dunno why. Personally, I think she looks amazing in this photospread and, as I said, I’m willing to give her a few more chances to impress me in the movie theater. I guess we’ll see … but what do y’all think? Does Jessica Alba have the chops to silence her critics and turn in an amazing acting performance?

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