"All of our abilities are grounded in our characters, and that's why I wanted to do it," Alba says.
While these pop fantasy movies aren't exactly Greek tragedy, Alba does see some classic sense in them.
"I don't know if there were so many of these roles 15 years ago, because we didn't have the technology that we have now to create these fantastical worlds," she says. "It's just a modern take on Greek mythology, something that humans have been fascinated with since the beginning of time."
Modern technology also enables comic-book purists to complain about the casting of their favourite characters on the Internet.
"Didn't they have resistance to Tobey Maguire playing Spider-Man and Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine?" Alba says. "They don't like anything until they see it."
But some complaints about the half-Hispanic actress playing white-bread Sue Storm have a different tone.
"I guess everyone believes that race is something we talk about, but it isn't," Alba says with a shrug. "I'm half Mexican-American and half Caucasian, and I have blue eyes and blond hair in the movie, wear contacts and whatever. We recreated it exactly."
An Air Force brat, Alba lived in various parts of the United States before her family settled in Southern California. She began her career at the age of 12, and although she admits that she faced her share of stereotyping, the kid actress landed a healthy variety of film, commercial and television work.
That's where she learned to scuba dive, a passion that made this year's third movie release feel like a paid water-sports vacation.
"It was fun," she says of Into the Blue, which spices up its tanned-flesh basics with some cocaine-smuggling intrigue "I play a shark wrangler and I'm terrified of sharks, so I got to play a character against type. I've made an effort since Dark Angel to never play the same character twice. And this character Sam has moved to the Bahamas, lives a very simple life in a trailer, and just wants to study sharks and live with her boyfriend and just be at peace."
Great work if you can get it. Like making movies, regardless of all the side issues that come with the job.
"If you kind of keep yourself open to things happening, they'll happen," the busy actress says. "I've been really focused since I started acting at 12, believe it or not. I just this year sort of relaxed and began to think, okay, I think I'll get another job. So I've been really hustling and really fighting and really struggling and trying to get people not to put me in one box or another and to not say, 'Oh, she's a Latina actress,' 'She's a white actress,' 'She's a this actress,' 'She's a that actress,' and just be an actress that's a chameleon. Now, I feel like I've done that to a degree."
By BOB STRAUSS
www.TheGlobeAndMail.com