<p id=”par-1_66″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/actors/”>Actor</a> Jessica Alba famously <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/bruce-willis-tried-avoid-kissing-jessica-alba-sin-city.html/”>co-starred alongside Bruce Willis</a> in the feature <em>Sin City</em>. But the <em>Fantastic Four </em>star had to step out of her comfort zone when she was cast as a dancer in the flick. The director told Alba that her dance choreography would be similar to Salma Hayek’s in <em>From Dusk Till Dawn</em>. But that just made Alba even more nervous about the take.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-sin-city-director-wouldn-t-let-jessica-alba-get-a-choreographer-for-her-dance-moves”>‘Sin City’ director wouldn’t let Jessica Alba get a choreographer for her dance moves</h2>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-1″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SIN-CITY-Jessica-alba.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”Jessica Alba posing in a black suit at the FireAid Benefit Concert.” class=”wp-image-3782850″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Jessica Alba | Christopher Polk/Getty Images</figcaption></figure>
<p id=”par-2_39″><em>Sin City </em>director Robert Rodriguez was perhaps the biggest reason why Alba wanted to do the film. She was already a fan of Rodriguez’s work, and wanted the filmmaker’s validation more than she wanted a role in his movie.</p>
<p id=”par-3_151″>“I didn’t really know it was a comic book when I saw that he was directing something. I just tell my agents every month, ‘What’s Robert doing? I want to do something with him,’” she once told <a href=”https://www.radiofree.com/profiles/jessica_alba/interview01.shtml#:~:text=What%20made%20you%20want%20to,month%2C%20%22What’s%20Robert%20doing%3F”>Radio Free</a>. “And one of my agents has a relationship with Robert and said, ‘You got an opportunity.’ And I was like, ‘Excellent!’ So I took that opportunity and ran with it. I auditioned the old fashion way, went in for the casting director, put myself on tape, and he had to approve. And it was like a week of, ‘Does he think I suck?’ Like I don’t even care if I get the role, I just don’t want Robert to think I suck! And he didn’t think I sucked. And he came down, and I read with him, and at that time I looked at the graphic novel and I saw the pictures.”</p>
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<p id=”par-4_68″>Alba impressed Rodriguez enough for him to cast her as Nancy in the film, who was a stripper and Willis’ love interest. In one scene, Alba’s character is dancing seductively on top of a bar counter. It was one of the more terrifying takes for the actor, who studied real-life strippers to perfect her movements. She wanted a dance choreographer to help her, but Rodriguez refused her request.</p>
<p id=”par-5_23″>“I was like ‘Ahhhh, Ok.’ and he’s like ‘Just feel it. We’re gonna play music and you’re just gonna feel it,’” Alba said.</p>
<p id=”par-6_28″>Rodriguez wanted Alba to naturally react to the music. It was a technique he used on Salma Hayek when <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/salma-hayek-had-to-overcome-snake-phobia-for-from-dusk-till-dawn-dance-scene-she-would-have-been-fired.html/”>he directed her dance</a> in <em>From Dusk Till Dawn</em>.</p>
<p id=”par-7_58″>“Mind you, he’s saying Salma Hayek in <em>Dusk Till Dawn</em>, the sexiest dance I’ve ever seen on camera ever. And he’s like, ‘It’ll be like that.’ And I was like, ‘Like that? Are you serious? I have to live up to something.’ Like it’s iconic, there hasn’t been a sexier dance ever, and she wasn’t naked,” Alba said.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-why-jessica-alba-didn-t-strip-for-sin-city”>Why Jessica Alba didn’t strip for ‘Sin City’</h2>
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<span class=”related-article-flag”>Related</span>
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<p id=”par-8_65″>Alba has always had a strict no-nudity policy when it comes to doing movies. She even once had an entire movie rewritten because there <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/jessica-alba-entire-movie-re-written-many-sex-scenes.html/”>were too many sex scenes</a>. However, with her <em>Sin City</em> character being a stripper, Alba felt stripping naked would’ve made sense for Nancy. So much so she was even willing to show more skin in the movie if she had to.</p>
<p id=”par-9_17″>“You know, nudity was an option. We could have done it if we wanted to,” she said.</p>
<p id=”par-10_26″>But in the end, Rodriguez agreed to Alba’s sensibilities. Additionally, the actor made the argument that dancing fully clothed would’ve made her character seem more attractive.</p>
<p id=”par-11_73″>“Robert said that we could do it if we wanted to, and obviously it would have been more authentic. But I felt like dancing around with a lasso and chaps was going to be sexy enough. And I think being nude, for me, would have been distracting, and I really couldn’t be bottomless, for my dad would be like…I don’t know. He would disown me or something. He would freak out,” she said.</p>
<p id=”par-12_17″>Rodriguez asserted that Alba was still able to capture the character’s spirit without taking her clothes off.</p>
<p id=”par-13_29″>“In the world of the comic, they just think Nancy’s the sexiest person in the world. And you did that. That’s all we needed to worry about,” she said.</p>