'Good Luck Chuck' Interviews with Jessica Alba and Dane Cook at Hollywood.com

Home

Celebrities

'Good Luck Chuck' Interviews with Jessica Alba and Dane Cook

By Emily Christianson and Fred Topel, Hollywood.com Staff | Thursday, October 18, 2007

Recommend (0)

Comments (0)

Jessica Alba

They were going for a comedic Mr. and Mrs. Smith love scene, but Jessica Alba and Dane Cook got more than they bargained for on the set of their new movie Good Luck Chuck. "We were slamming into walls and breaking things and tumbling over couches and stuff. He slammed my head into a picture and while my head was smacking into the wall...his teeth slammed into my teeth."

While Cook chipped his bottom teeth, Alba explains, "I had a bond put on my [front] tooth, but when I take it off, I look like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. I look really silly."

In Good Luck Chuck, Alba stars as Cam, a penguin specialist, while Cook plays a cursed bachelor who loses every girl he sleeps with to the next guy she meets. Chuck bears the burden of the hex placed on him when he was just 10--until he meets Cam, the woman of his dreams. Alba had a lot to tells us about her first role in a comedy, working with penguins, curses and pick-up lines.

Hollywood.com: You are such a graceful person. How did you relate to Cam’s clumsiness?
Jessica Alba: I'm quite clumsy in my own personal life, more than any person should be. It's kind of a joke. It was fun being able to not hide that. I'm usually having to be incredibly self-aware and self-possessed and self-conscious and even just walking in heels. And trying to pretend I'm a superhero and trying to be the most coordinated person on the planet in Dark Angel and all these things. In this, I really got to be goofy and just have fun.

HW: Did you campaign to let Hollywood know you can be funny too?
JA: I hosted the MTV Movie Awards two summers ago. I kind of used it as my audition, because I haven't really done any comedies. I couldn't get into those roles, because people just didn't think that was my thing. They thought I was an "action girl." I hosted the Movie Awards, knowing I was going to be able to do funny skits, and Dane was at the show, and that's when he made the call.

Jessica Alba and Dane Cook
HW: Did you have preconceived notions about what it would be like to work on a physical comedy and work with Dane?
JA: I really didn't, to be honest with you. I knew it was going to be fun, because Dane and I, the second we met each other, just got along. It was like I'd known the guy forever and we just have a good time. We have a great rapport.

HW: You play a penguin specialist in the film. What was it like working with the critters?
JA: They're lovely little animals. They don't like everybody, but they liked me right away. I found a way to tickle them on their neck, which is how their handlers do it. Usually they're kind of spastic and stiff, but they would lay down and kind of purr when I did that. That's when I knew they liked me.

HW: In the film, Chuck is trying to shake a curse. Do you believe in curses?
JA: I think everyone brings it onto themselves. I have to believe that that's the way it is. It's so random, why things happen. Some people, bad things always happen. My aunt, like every car she has, they break. Every car whether it's brand new, whether it's old, whether it's my car. If she's driving it, it's going to break. So I think that you just carry around an energy. You enforce that upon everything, so whether it's breaking cars involuntarily or getting in relationships and constantly sort of not finding your match. I think it's about creating patterns, breaking them and learning from them. Sometimes if you're not willing to do that in retrospect, you just kind of go in circles.

HW: The women trying to sleep with Chuck really just want to find "the one." Why is finding the right person so hard these days?
JA: Because I think you have to be in the right state of mind, and you have to be in the right state of mind with the type of dating that you want to have with the person that is also in the right state of mind to be dating you. Timing is everything.

HW: What about pick up lines? Have you ever needed a pickup line for a guy?
JA: I don't know. I get embarrassed. If I have a crush on someone, I get all like squirmy and quiet and giggly. I never know what to say. My mouth is dry and my heart beats fast. I get completely stupid.

HW: How do you prep for different genres?
JA: All of us actors, certainly everyone that I know, we all get DVDs, like a group of DVDs as references for what we want to emulate, or performances that inspire us that are in that genre, like CDs and a bunch of music as well. Good Luck Chuck was a lot of Goldie Hawn, Lucille Ball. I think those were my main two. Peter Sellers. The one that I'm doing now, Gilda Radner's big. I'm watching a lot of [Saturday Night Live]. I enjoy it. Because you're kind of going through film school with each film as well, and educating yourself with different things. I did watch a little Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's, those fun classics because I wanted to get in touch with the girl as well, that's super in love and has these great dreams and ideas of love and relationships and all that, because it's a combination in a romantic comedy and a physical comedy.

Dane Cook Puts a Hex on Us...

Dane Cook

Dane Cook calls it the "Jessica hat trick." First he starred alongside Jessica Biel in the indie film London, then wooed Jessica Simpson in Employee of the Month. Now he’s romancing Jessica Alba in their new comedy Good Luck Chuck.

Cook’s character Chuck is cursed with the ability to help women meet their soul mates, after they break up with him. When he finds a keeper (Alba), he has to refrain from sleeping with her, lest he spur her onto a different soul mate.

Busy on the set of his next film, Bachelor No. 2, Cook had to think back two movies ago for Good Luck Chuck. He already completed Dan in Real Life which comes out next month. He's also got a standup CD on the way and plans to start hitting the road with new material. This funnyman takes his comedy very, very seriously.

Hollywood.com: Which Jessica is a better kisser, Alba or Simpson?
Dane Cook: I definitely am not going to comment on that. They’re both great people and I consider them both very good friends. So I guess the term "You don’t kiss and tell" would apply. I feel like the gods have certainly patted me on the head. I’ve had some lovely Jessica’s to engage in some pantomime kissing with.