Jessica Alba Opens Up About Her Problem With Addiction … To Acting

Jessica Alba opened up about her biggest addiction in life, something she said can open her up to new worlds.

That addiction? Acting.

“It’s been liberating to be able to play someone who’s a badass or promiscuous because that’s the opposite of who I am…It’s like a drug,” she shares in the 2014 March issue of Nylon magazine. Adding that the roles give her a break from her real life: “I don’t have to be a boss; I don’t have to be a wife; I don’t have to be a sister.”

Jessica Alba went on to explain that she has grown more confident as she takes on characters outside her comfort zone.

“Before I was so fearful of failure and judgment that I was scared to put myself out there,” she says. And now she knows that “you don’t have to be a robot, you don’t have to be appropriate all the time.”

Alba has plenty of outside-the-box acting projects on the horizon. She recently signed on to Barely Lethal, a movie about a 16-year-old assassin who fakes her own death and starts her life over as a high school student. Alba plays the former associate tasked with hunting the girl down.

She has another ultra-violent project in Machete Kills, the third film based on Grindhouse fake trailers.

“The cast that [director Robert Rodriguez] put together for this one is bananas. Robert really has a gift in so many ways. He certainly put together a really cool and eclectic cast,” she said. “It’s so fun and the cameos are amazing. I have a smaller role in this one.”

But Jessica Alba is far from just an actress. She is a full-time mom and has branched out into the nonprofit realm, supporting the second annual Baby2Baby gala late last year and then turning up at a family outing early the next morning.