Being a Hollywood actress may look like an incredibly glamorous gig, but there's more going on behind the glossy scenes than just having your make-up done.

For her latest role Jessica Alba had to learn to play the violin like a professional while pretending to be blind - no small feat for any actress.

Chinese horror remake The Eye follows blind violinist Sydney Wells (Jessica) as she undergoes a cornea transplant and adapts to her newly-acquired sight.

But her comfortable life is shattered when she takes on the traits of her dead donor, including disturbing flashbacks and the power to see ghosts.

Jessica, 26, reveals the intensive training she undertook at orientation centres in Los Angeles and New Mexico to prepare for the role.

"I learned basic Braille reading, how to walk with a cane and how people live in their homes, self-sufficiently" she says.

"I labelled everything in my house, so I could walk freely wearing sleep shades."

It seems her hard work paid off when she actually started filming, because she couldn't see much through eerie grey contact lenses.

"They covered my entire eye - I had no peripheral vision and sometimes partial vision."

Jessica also spent time with a blind musician, which totally transformed her view of blindness as a disability.

"She's a vocalist and travels all around the world on her own, takes taxis, subways, planes, everything. She was pretty much my inspiration," she reveals.

"And she was incredibly perceptive. After about 20 minutes in a room she didn't use her cane.

"If you can't see, you really pick up on people's energy differently. You don't have their face to guide you on who they are so you don't judge people in quite the same way.

"I had thought it was much more of a handicap, but you can live on your own, you can pretty much hold down most jobs blind.

"It's really other people's perceptions that makes it an issue because she was quite happy with her life and thought it was just the way God made her."

Having learnt to live without sight, Jessica then had to tackle the violin.

"It was the most difficult instrument on the planet," she says, laughing. "I did six months of extensive training with five different women who have been playing since they were kids.

"They still practice eight hours a day just to stay good enough to be in an orchestra. I just don't have that kind of dedication."

But she did commit to the task, practising whenever she could, even during breaks from filming Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.

"I didn't have time to take off that suit, so in my Storm outfit I was hacking away at the violin," she laughs.

"My poor dogs probably suffered the most, because they were always in the trailer with me. They would always run to the back.

"I had to learn six or seven pieces, but by the time we were shooting the movie, it got pared down to two, which I curse the directors for.

"I would practice for two or three hours every night. My neck is still in knots," adds Jessica. "But I was not only learning the music for the first time, I also had to learn it by feel and play with the rhythm of the songs."

In a nod to movie The Sixth Sense, Sydney's developing vision allows her to see dead people - from the little boy in the corridor by her apartment, to the diners in the burned-out Chinese restaurant.

At first she thinks she's going mad, but with the help of Dr Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola), Sydney finally works out she is experiencing a real-life phenomenon called Cellular Memory, where transplant recipients display the characteristics of their donors.

"Ghost stories are such a leap of faith and the audience go on this journey with you, so you want to try and infuse it with as much reality as possible," explains Jessica.

"I met a guy who loved sweets and hated Italian food and he said after his liver transplant, he didn't pick up a single sweet ever again and all he could eat was pizza and pasta.

"He spoke to the mother of his donor, who was a 16-year-old boy - hated sweets and his favourite food was pizza and pasta."

California-born Jessica came to fame playing Max Guevera in the 2000 TV series Dark Angel before making her name in movies like Sin City.

As an ardent horror fan (she watched Nightmare On Elm Street when she was just four), she'd been looking for the right film to make.

"It was the most interesting female role that I read," she says of The Eye. "A lot of horror movies have much more of a victim stance when it comes to the female character and it usually involves crying and screaming.

"This was playing a blind violinist just basically losing her mind. It was much more interesting for me to play."

Jessica has one more movie coming out this year - The Love Guru, with Justin Timberlake, Mike Myers and Ben Kingsley.

But as her first baby with fiance Cash Warren is due any time now - she is heavily pregnant when we speak - she is taking a well-earned break from filming.

"I have worked for nearly two years, so I planned on taking a break after I finished The Love Guru and coincidentally I was pregnant," she says.

"It was during the strike, so things were sort of slow in the business anyway. The timing just seemed to fall into place, but I'm not really sure what the future holds."

And she doesn't seem too worried about it either.

"I know how fickle and silly this business is," she continues. "I know it takes just one movie to put you back up, or you can have five that are great movies that no one sees and you're down in the gutter again.

"It's so fickle that you have to get on with your life and keep your priorities straight or you will just go insane."

There are rumours that Sin City 2 is in production ("I really don't know anything about it") and Jessica admits that after the birth of her child, rumoured to be a girl, she will choose her roles more carefully.

"This is obviously a life-altering experience and to say it's not going to influence decisions I make would simply be crazy because I'm already a different person and the baby hasn't come yet.

"I'm sure once the baby is here my priorities will shift even more and spending time away from your child and at work, it has to be well worth it.

"I still feel like I'm just starting. Most actresses that I really love hit their stride in their 30s and 40s and I'm hoping that will be the case for me."

She also hopes to turn her hand at producing and get something in production for this year - and she has a firm idea of future parts she'd like to play.

"That's my next goal. It would be nice to do stuff that maybe isn't so commercial or have to rely on the box office so much.

"I like the more creative characters, where you can make bolder decisions and you don't have the studio telling you that it needs to open.

"I kind of have just been creating my own path. Not many actresses do the variety of movies that I do, especially in my age range."

Name: Jessica Marie Alba

Age: 26

Significant Other: Jessica is engaged to Cash Warren, who she met on the set of Fantastic Four in 2004

Career High: In 2005 Jessica won the Superstar Of Tomorrow gong at the Young Hollywood Awards. As well as acting accolades, the actress frequently tops lists of Hollywood's sexiest women.

Career Low: In 2005 she was nominated for a joint Razzie Worst Actress award for her roles in Fantastic Four and Into The Blue.

Famous For: Playing Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman, in the 2005 film Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.

Words Of Wisdom: "What happens when the looks fade? If I don't establish myself as someone who can act a part rather than look the part, I will soon be finished."