Jessica Alba starts filming the thriller Trigger Warning for Netflix in New Mexico this fall, starring and executive producing her first feature film in a few years. She told Deadline she’ll be flying back to Los Angeles twice a week in large part to tend to Honest Co., a business she founded a decade ago, took public in May and that now has a market cap of $1.26 billion. Alba is chief creative director.
“I don’t believe I’ll miss a beat,” said the businesswoman and actress (Fantastic Four, Dark Angel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Spy Kids 4-D), who recently starred in and executive produced action drama L.A.’s Finest and will host and produce the docuseries Parents Without Borders for Disney+. She spoke with Deadline after a panel at an AT&T 5G event in NYC on Wednesday when she described ways 5G can enhance Honest Co., a consumer products company she launched in 2011 that sells healthful baby product, skincare and non-toxic household products, much of it online.
“I am a big advocate of being consumer first. I built my entire brand around a consumer-first sentiment,” she said.
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Asked about the current shifting landscape of the entertainment landscape, she said, “I think a lot of the infrastructure and… the stuff that people focus on is for a big screen in a lot of ways. And the facts or the realty of the situation is that a lot of people are consuming those same films, television shows with that high production value on their cell phones, on their tablets. So I think [on] the creative side they just have to be mindful of that.”
“If there’s lag in entertainment, with people who don’t really want to put the audience first, it’s like what are you really doing then?”
Over the past 10 years she’s focused more on Honest Co. than on Hollywood. “I dabbled a bit and I have a couple of things that I’ve been developing over the years and they’ve gotten to a place where I’m going to go into production. On Trigger Warning — “I’m excited to do it. It’s fun. It uses a totally different piece of my brain, of my soul. Being able to jump into that.”
The daylong event had AT&T flexing some star power even though it’s jettisoning WarnerMedia, which will merge with Discovery. Aston Kutcher was on a morning panel.
AT&T’s need to spend massive amounts of cash on spectrum to facilitate its 5G rollout (it bid $23 billion at an FCC spectrum auction earlier this year) is one reason it needs to really focus on telecom and the bitter three-way battle with T-Mobile and Verizon. Today AT&T showcased the benefits of 5G – speed, clarity, no more buffering — and announced a series of partnerships — in AR with Facebook, the NBA and WNBA, educational app Bookful, with Boingo, which provides high-speed Wi-Fi and cellular services to airports and stadiums and one involving WarnerMedia, Cinemark and upcoming Space Jam.