The movie-making experience Jessica Alba described as “hell”
In the early 2000s, Jessica Alba was one of the biggest stars on the planet. After her breakout role in Dark Angel during the previous decade, she emerged as a film star in the 2003 dance film Honey, which led to many notable roles. These included appearances in the much-maligned Fantastic Four films and several projects by Robert Rodriguez.
Since her commercial heyday, Alba’s career has slowed considerably, with 2024’s Trigger Warning marking her first film role since 2019’s Killers Anonymous. This shift can be attributed to her focus on motherhood and business interests outside of Hollywood, as well as the adverse effects of her immense fame. The contrast between her career then and now is light and day.
As Alba starred in many famous movies during her peak, some have been forgotten by the mainstream. One such film is 2005’s Into the Blue, which was overshadowed by her roles in the blockbusters Fantastic Four and Sin City that same year, both of which were enormous commercial successes despite mixed reviews. In contrast, Into the Blue—which tells the forgettable story of deep-sea divers finding a sunken plane harboring cocaine in the Bahamas—was a commercial flop.
Also starring the late Paul Walker alongside Josh Brolin, Scott Caan, James Frain and Ashley Scott, on paper, the movie should have been much better than it was. Somehow, it still managed to secure a direct-to-DVD sequel, Into the Blue 2: The Reef, a film featuring unheard-of actors that is even worse than its predecessor.
Although Alba remembers 2005 as the year that made her a star, she doesn’t reflect on her time filming Into the Blue with any positivity. Reflecting the backward attitudes of the time, the film contributed to her sex-symbol status despite her being a young newcomer. For most of the movie, she wore a bikini, a role she absolutely hated. She described the experience as a nightmare, underscoring how gross and uncomfortable it was for her.
Years later, she revealed on Hot Ones that she refused to film a scene with a wild tiger shark, but this was the least of her worries. Forced to wear a bikini for the majority of filming left a really sour taste. In a video interview with People Magazine not long after its release, Alba said it was “not fun” wearing the blue bikini that became synonymous with her role in Into the Blue.
Offering insight into the struggles young female actors face purely because of their gender, she revealed that whenever the cameras stopped rolling, she would immediately cover up in a towel and anxiously call her mother, telling her she hated the movie with all her being.
Alba said: “It was hell. I didn’t like being in a bathing suit for that long of a period. I certainly didn’t look forward to that part of it.”
What’s worse is that her character was initially written as a marine biology student who didn’t need a bikini and could have worn a wetsuit for most of the flick instead. However, in another reflection of the times, those in charge dumbed it down for cynical commercial reasons, with scenes using a bikini-wearing body double already shot by the time Alba got to set. This left her with no choice but to match it in her own sequences, all for the sake of stupid continuity.
