The Fantastic Four Scene That Almost Made Jessica Alba Quit Acting
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00:00 2005's Fantastic Four may not be a film Marvel fans or superhero fans in general want to
00:06 remember, but it exists, whether they like it or not.
00:09 2007's Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer didn't do much to improve upon its predecessor,
00:15 and 2015's reboot Fantastic Four unfortunately followed that same downward trend.
00:20 With another Fantastic Four reboot on the way, fans can only hope that another film
00:25 starring Marvel's First Family doesn't go the way of the Negative Zone.
00:29 Part of what could make that happen is having the actors and director work well together,
00:33 which was not the case for Rise of the Silver Surfer.
00:35 Indeed, Jessica Alba, who played Susan Storm, aka the Invisible Woman, didn't exactly get
00:41 along with director Tim Story.
00:43 Alba had such an unsavory time filming Rise of the Silver Surfer that one particularly
00:47 difficult scene nearly made her say goodbye to acting for good.
00:51 For a bit of context, Alba hasn't always been on the best terms with screenwriters, being
00:55 quoted in Elle magazine's December 2010 issue as saying,
00:59 "Good actors never use the script, unless it's amazing writing.
01:03 All the good actors I've worked with, they all say whatever they want to say."
01:06 This caught the attention of many writers in Hollywood, most notably Charlie's Angels
01:10 scribe John August, who wrote a blog post in an attempt to explain why Alba's comments
01:15 were hurtful and, quote, "setting dangerous expectations."
01:19 According to Alba, the quote was taken out of context, as she explained during a press
01:23 event for 2010's Little Fockers,
01:25 "It's not that Alba thinks scripts don't matter, it's that she personally feels she doesn't
01:29 know how to not be tied to a script and to improvise when needed, which she apparently
01:34 considers the mark of a good actor."
01:36 Alba went on to say,
01:37 "Basically, I was saying that I didn't have the courage and didn't really understand how
01:41 to bring my own thing to the table and I would never veer away from the script.
01:45 Ever.
01:46 No matter what."
01:47 This confession from Alba ties into her experience on Rise of the Silver Surfer.
01:51 She reportedly had a number of experiences where she was told to read the words on the
01:55 page in the exact way they were written.
01:57 That made her lose confidence in herself and her acting abilities.
02:01 "It's nice to be wanted sometimes, Reed."
02:04 During one of the emotional climaxes in Rise of the Silver Surfer, Alba's character Sue
02:08 is crying as she dies in her husband Reed Richard's arms.
02:11 But the sequence seen on the big screen and the way it was originally shot are completely
02:16 different.
02:17 Alba acted out the crying scene, perhaps the way it was written in the script, but it wasn't
02:21 what the director wanted.
02:22 According to Alba, Story told her to, quote, "be prettier" during the scene.
02:27 Alba explained to Elle magazine,
02:29 "I remember when I was dying in Silver Surfer.
02:32 The director was like, 'It looks too real.
02:34 It looks too painful.'
02:35 Can you be prettier when you cry?
02:37 Cry pretty, Jessica.
02:38 Just make it flat.
02:39 We can CGI the tears in."
02:41 A director critiquing an actor's work and asking for some degree of adjustment is one
02:45 thing, but to take advantage of her looks rather than her emotional range and say animators
02:50 will digitally modify her performance?
02:53 It's hard to imagine what that felt like.
02:55 At the time, the experience made Alba question not only her worth as an actor, but also her
03:00 worth as a human being.
03:02 As she told Elle,
03:03 "It all got me thinking, 'Am I not good enough?
03:05 Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough?
03:08 Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person?'"
03:11 From there, Alba began to feel differently about the acting profession as a whole.
03:15 "I just said, 'F--- it.
03:17 I don't care about this business anymore.'"
03:18 Thankfully, she didn't end up quitting acting, explaining to Elle that motherhood gave her
03:23 a thicker skin and helped her become more confident in the face of criticism.
03:28 Since the release of Rise of the Silver Surfer in June 2007, Alba married Cash Warren, whom
03:33 she met in 2004 while filming Fantastic Four, became a mother of three, and has been in
03:38 numerous films and TV shows.
03:40 Some of her most notable roles include Cam Wetzler in Good Luck Chuck, Nancy Callahan
03:45 in SimCity A Dame to Kill For, and Victoria Knox in Barely Lethal.
03:49 And from 2019 to 2020, Alba held a main role as Nancy McKenna in the Bad Boys spin-off
03:55 series L.A.'s Finest.
03:58 Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer may have pushed Alba to nearly quit acting, but
04:02 we're glad she didn't let the tough time dull her shine.
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