Pretty, Pouty and Hell on Wheels
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She doesn't come with a warning label, but the genetically modified Max, played by Jessica Alba, is engineered to raise hell in Dark Angel, James Cameron's first TV effort. Sexy superhuman Max, who's hunted by her military creators through a postapocalyptic Pacific Northwest, can ride a motorcycle, kick enemy butt and rescue the innocent--all without smudging the lipstick on her near-perfect pucker.

Blink and you might have missed Alba's brief career, but the 19-year-old has been quietly raising eyebrows since she first appeared in Flipper, then Never Been Kissed and Idle Hands. And despite those drool-inducing Dark Angel billboards, the half-Mexican, half-French-Canadian beauty insists she's at least as much klutz as cutie pie.

Why do directors keep putting you on motorcycles?
You also rode one in Idle Hands. I can't figure it out. It's a cool means of transportation, I guess, so they think if a girl is strong and cocky, she's going to ride a bike. I mean, how many teenage girls do you know who ride motorcycles?

So, you probably didn't know how to ride before Idle Hands.
No way. That's when I learned, and that's why I looked really bad. I was all nervous and straight-backed. I did six months of bike training, on and off, for Dark Angel. And a streetbike is obviously completely different from a Triumph.

Were you into the tomboy aspect of playing Max?
Oh yeah. I'm into sports, but this totally challenged me, beyond what I've ever done before. It was cool pushing myself to those limits.

What kind of sports are you into?
Baseball, soccer and softball. I can throw really far, so I tried to be a quarterback in football, but then I got boobs, so I couldn't do that anymore.

Max is quite the sexpot. Is she anything like you?
I'm a little bit more of a dork. I run into things, and I'm kind of uncoordinated sometimes.

You just filmed a movie in Malaysia, The Sleeping Dictionary. What's that about?
My character's name is Selima, and the movie's set in the 1930s. It's a love story between Selima and a guy named Hugh Dansy. Selima's a Malaysian tribe girl, and he's an English officer. In a world where they can't ever be together, they fall in love. It's that whole struggle of knowing that you can't be with your soul mate and dealing with that.

Do you have your own tragic love story?
No, because I haven't actually been in love like she's been in love. But I don't usually get myself in circumstances that I know are impossible.

What was it like filming in Malaysia?
Crazy. It was culture shock. You eat the same thing every day: steamed vegetables. People are really cool there; it's a lot less of a Third World country than Mexico.

So, it wasn't like eating rats on Survivor?
I haven't seen Survivor. What's that?

Flipper scenes, characters, and logos are a trademark of SGM Productions in association with Tribune Entertainment Last Modified: November 12, 2000