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| ‘Hollywood can be hard for the faint of heart’: Jessica Alba. Photograph: Jay L Clendenin/Contour by Getty Images |
I thought I was dumb because I didn’t go to college. I felt if you didn’t have a degree you’d never be respected or considered intelligent. Now I realise I’m perfectly capable of doing lots of things.
My parents had me young. They were 18 and 19 and always really fun. My dad was in the military – we used to get up at 5am and he would eat kids’ cereal and watch cartoons with my younger brother and I while ironing his clothes in just his underwear. They lived paycheck to paycheck, which made me never want to struggle.
Success in entertainment used to be purely financial for me. Once I was in my mid-20s and had achieved some degree of security, I started looking for something more substantive to focus on. Then when I got pregnant a few years later, I came up with the idea for my company [natural beauty line The Honest Company].
When I was young I didn’t know how to speak up [at work] and say, “I don’t like this.” I wasn’t that person [a sex symbol] people were portraying me as. I come from a pretty conservative background; I was a tomboy wearing baggy clothes. But you’re being marketed in a movie to sell it – I understood it was the characters I was playing.
Strong relationships with other women are important, especially after you become a mum. It gives you a sense of self to be surrounded by a group of people who accept and support you beyond your family.
The Honest Company wasn’t a slam-dunk. I wasn’t saying, “Oh, let’s license my name and sell a perfume.” As a new mum, I found it challenging to find effective products without things like synthetic fragrances. I wanted to create a consumer goods company that stands for transparency and is actually profitable.
Hollywood can be hard for the faint of heart. People hustle to be successful and then that moment when they feel they’ve made it, it disappears in an instant. I don’t feel like my persona in entertainment defines me. I’ve never put a whole lot of importance on it. When I was on every magazine cover and in all the new movies, I knew a lot of it would go away.
You learn discipline growing up on a military base. You learn that sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to and you just have to get through it.
I spend a lot more time on my business than acting. When I can find the time and it’s entertainment, I’ll do something. With this last movie, I thought it would be fun to kick some butts again. I just sort of missed it.
I’ve always loved dressing up. I chose to do it for a living. I love that fantasy element of being able to transform yourself into a different person.
It’s really important people vote in the [US presidential] election. I know how I’ll be voting but I’m not saying.
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