Jessica Alba playing a blind violinist

Jessica Alba plays a blind violinist in new thriller The Eye. The actress talks to Able about her preparation for the role and how she thinks impending motherhood will change her life.

Being a Hollywood actress may look like an incredibly glamorous gig, but there’s more going on behind the glossy scenes than just having your make-up done. For her latest role Jessica Alba – star of the Fantastic Four films – had to learn to play the violin like a professional while pretending to be blind – no small feat for any actress.

In The Eye, a remake of a classic Chinese horror film, Jessica plays blind violinist Sydney Wells as she undergoes a cornea transplant and adapts to her newly-acquired sight. Her comfortable life is shattered when she takes on the traits of her dead donor, including disturbing flashbacks and the power to see ghosts.

Jessica undertook intensive training at orientation centres in Los Angeles and New Mexico to prepare for the role. “I learned basic Braille reading, how to walk with a cane and how people live in their homes, self-sufficiently,” she says. “I labelled everything in my house, so I could walk freely wearing sleep shades.”

Jessica also spent time with a blind musician, which totally transformed her view of blindness. “She’s a vocalist and travels all around the world on her own, takes taxis, subways, planes, everything. She was pretty much my inspiration,” Jessica reveals. “And she was incredibly perceptive; after about 20 minutes in a room she didn’t use her cane. If you can’t see, you really pick up on people’s energy differently. You don’t have their face to guide you on who they are, so you don’t judge people in quite the same way.

“I had thought blindness was much more of a handicap, but you can live on your own, you can pretty much hold down most jobs,” Jessica says. “It’s really other people’s perceptions that makes it an issue. She was quite happy with her life and thought it was just the way God made her.”

Having learnt to live without sight, Jessica then had to tackle the violin. “It was the most difficult instrument on the planet,” she says, laughing. “I did six months of extensive training with five different women who have been playing since they were kids. They still practice eight hours a day just to stay good enough to be in an orchestra. I just don’t have that kind of dedication.”

But she did commit to the task, practising whenever she could, even during breaks from filming Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer. “I didn’t have time to take off that suit,” she laughs, “so in my Storm outfit I was hacking away at the violin. I would practice for two or three hours every night. My neck is still in knots,” adds Jessica. “But I was not only learning the music for the first time, I also had to learn it by feel and play with the rhythm of the songs.”

In a nod to movie The Sixth Sense, Sydney’s developing vision allows her to see dead people – from the little boy in the corridor by her apartment, to the diners in the burned-out Chinese restaurant. At first she thinks she’s going mad, but with the help of Dr Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola), Sydney finally works out she is experiencing a real-life phenomenon called Cellular Memory, where transplant recipients display the characteristics of their donors.

“Ghost stories are such a leap of faith and the audience go on this journey with you, so you want to try and infuse it with as much reality as possible,” explains Jessica. “I met a guy who loved sweets and hated Italian food and he said after his liver transplant, he didn’t pick up a single sweet ever again and all he could eat was pizza and pasta. He spoke to the mother of his donor, who was a 16-year-old boy – hated sweets and his favourite food was pizza and pasta.”

California-born Jessica came to fame playing Max Guevera in the 2000 TV series Dark Angel before making her name in movies like Sin City. As an ardent horror fan – she watched Nightmare On Elm Street when she was just four – she’d been looking for the right film to make.

“It was the most interesting female role that I read,” she says of The Eye. “A lot of horror movies have much more of a victim stance when it comes to the female character and it usually involves crying and screaming. This was playing a blind violinist just basically losing her mind. It was much more interesting for me to play.”

Jessica has one more movie coming out this year – The Love Guru, with Justin Timberlake, Mike Myers and Ben Kingsley. But, with her first baby with fiancé Cash Warren due very soon as we speak, she’s taking a well-earned break from filming.

“I have worked for nearly two years, so I planned on taking a break after I finished The Love Guru and, coincidentally, I was pregnant,” she explains. “It was during the writers’ strike, so things were sort of slow in the business anyway – the timing just seemed to fall into place, but I’m not really sure what the future holds.”

Not that she seems too worried about the fact.

“I know how fickle and silly this business is,” she continues. “I know it takes just one movie to put you back up, or you can have five great movies that no one sees and you’re down in the gutter again. It’s so fickle that you have to get on with your life and keep your priorities straight or you will just go insane.”

Jessica admits that, after the birth, she’s likely to choose her roles more carefully. “This is obviously a life-altering experience and to say it’s not going to influence decisions I make would simply be crazy. I’m already a different person and the baby hasn’t come yet!” she says. “I’m sure once the baby is here my priorities will shift even more and to spend time away from your child at work, it has to be well worth it.

She also hopes to turn her hand at producing and get something in production for this year. “That’s my next goal,” Jessica says. “It would be nice to do stuff that maybe isn’t so commercial or have to rely on the box office so much. I like the more creative characters, where you can make bolder decisions and you don’t have the studio telling you that it needs to open.

“I kind of have just been creating my own path. Not many actresses do the variety of movies that I do, especially in my age range, but I still feel like I’m just starting. Most actresses that I really love hit their stride in their 30s and 40s and I’m hoping that will be the case for me.”

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