from the director - praise for Jessica Alba's performance

It stands to reason, then, that the film that finally obscures those heavenly features is the one of which she’s most proud. The upcoming indie An Invisible Sign of My Own employs the Halle-Nicole-Charlize highlight-talent-by-burying-looks strategy, but instead of adding a prosthetic nose or 35 extra pounds, Alba is shrouded in a mousy amalgam of pigtails, floppy hats, and schlumpy layers to achieve a look the actress calls “grandma meets 10-year-old.”

Alba plays Mona Gray, a naive, reclusive woman whose obsession with numbers leads her to take a job as a math teacher; the film follows Mona as she breaks out of her childlike shell and learns to embrace the outside world. The role is, by all accounts, a more demanding, complex journey than any Alba has ever embodied on-screen.

“I really did not picture her as the lead in this film,” says director Marilyn Agrelo, who is best known for the culty child-performer documentary Mad Hot Ballroom. “I knew her as a piece of pop culture, Fantastic Four, this sort of thing.” In a single meeting, Alba won Agrelo over. “I was so surprised by her intelligence, her thoughtfulness, her poise,” Agrelo says. “She’s a real, flesh-and-blood, fully realized woman.”

Costar Chris Messina (the preppy fiancé from Vicky Cristina Barcelona), who plays a science teacher who becomes Mona’s love interest, describes Alba’s work in the film as “magnificent.” “Jessica’s a beautiful woman, so this business is going to want to put her in a bikini or put a gun in her hand, but she’s just more than that,” Messina says. “It seemed to me that she really seized this.”

The result, according to Agrelo, is a performance that could change the course of Alba’s career. “I remember when Pulp Fiction opened, and people kind of laughed at the idea of John Travolta in that role. He blew everybody away,” she says. “When things like that happen, it’s wonderful. And it’s so rare that you get to be the one who pulls the surprise out of the hat.”

Messina refers to the actress-mom-wife “Jessica” and pop culture property “Jessica Alba,” as if they were totally unrelated entities. The woman who shows up to brunch the morning after our shoot is a bit of both. She arrives early, dressed in Olsen-sister incognito (boyfriend jeans, mannish brogues, fingerless gloves), at the chaotic TriBeCa comfort food spot Bubby’s. It’s the kind of place where, on weekends at least, lines are nightmarish, children outnumber adults, and the surrounding sidewalk is a veritable Bugaboo parking lot—and that’s exactly what Alba likes about it. (“There aren’t that many places where you don’t have to feel bad when your kid has a meltdown,” she says. “Plus, there’s a changing table downstairs.”) Today, Jessica is friendly and warm, but make no mistake, Jessica Alba—the guarded professional who works hard to defend the boundaries between personal and private—is in the driver’s seat.

"WHITE MEAT, DARK MEAT, ALL WILL BE CARVED"