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TV’s superwoman is practically superhuman in real life, too. DARK ANGEL’s Jessica Alba talks to Glamour about her boot-camp workout, killer hours – and how she fell in love.

While other 20-year olds are frequenting frat parties and wondering what to do with their lives, actress Jessica Alba is putting in 14-hour days filming Fox’s hit show DARK ANGEL in Vancouver, British Columbia. Despite the hours, she exudes a profound sense of calm. “This city’s cool. You can hike or chill out in the mountains.” Explains Alba, dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt and sneakers, over coffee at Vancouver’s Four Season’s Hotel. “Not like I do any of those things. I’m lazy.”

Blame it on her job. To play Max, a genetically engineered soldier in postapocalyptic Seattle, Alba draws on her martial arts skills and motorcycle-riding prowess. Before starting the role in 2000, she trained for a year, doing three hours of weight training and cardio a day and taking kung fu and gymnastics classes. “I got obsessed with it,” admits the 5’7”, size 4 actress. “A lot of girls have eating disorders, and I did too. I got too thin, and you get sick when you’re too thin – too many colds. Now I’m concentrating on being normal.” (“Normal” means doing an hour of boot-camp cardio – high-intensity calisthenics – daily, and sticking to a healthy eating plan.)

But Alba’s life is not, and never has been, normal. The daughter of Mark, a real estate broker, and Cathy, a housewife, Alba announced at age 12 that she wanted to become an actress. She began taking classes and landed a role in 1994’s CAMP NOWHERE. That year, Alba became a born-again Christian. “I was praying at 5 a.m. and handing out flyers,” she says. “I already had a woman’s body, and I’d give flyers to a guy who’d say, ‘Oh baby, if Jesus looked anything like you, I’d do Jesus!” But church imposed lots of regulations. “I was told not to wear tight jeans because it was tempting to men and that if I even thought about having sex before marriage, my man would cheat on me. I thought I was a sinner.”

Alba began to rebel against church, playing a pregnant girl in a 1996 Afterschool Special and a teen mom on a 1998 episode of BEVERLY HILLS, 90210. That year, she took part in an Atlantic Theatre Company workshop in Vermont (her brother, Josh, 19, studied with ATC’s New York City acting school). “I brought, like, 20 scripts to figure out how to audition for a movie. People were saying I should be a real actress and do theatre, but I didn’t want to be a waitress to support myself!” says Alba. “It was a great life lesson to stand my ground about what I wanted to do as an adult.” She started to immerse herself in acting and to pull away from the church – though today, Alba remains devout in her way. “I believe in God,” she says, “and that the reason to be here is to love. Love is joy, sadness and life.”

Without church, Alba’s life consisted mainly of work. She nabbed a role in 1999’s NEVER BEEN KISSED, and not long after, auditioned for DARK ANGEL. There she met her costar Michael Weatherly, 33, to whom she became engaged in May. “It was an instant thing,” says Alba. “I knew he was The Guy when I first laid eyes on him.”

Not that she let him in on her secret. “At first I though she was naïve and overconfident,” recalls Weatherly, who plays cyber journalist. “The first time we did a scene, Jess said, ‘Is that the way you’re going to do it?’ She wasn’t being obnoxious, she just wants everything to be right. It’s rare for someone that young to know so much. I’m a lucky man.”

Like Weatherly, others are impressed by Alba’s pragmatism. “Jessica is a role model,” says Carol J. Hamilton, senior vice president and general manager of L’Oreal, who signed Alba as a spokesmodel. “Her strength and intelligence are reflected in her DARK ANGEL character.” For her efforts, Alba won TV GUIDE’s 2001 Breakout Star of the Year Award.

While in Vancouver filming the show’s second season, Alba and Weatherly rented their first home together. “We’re really domestic,” says Alba, who plans to have children in her late twenties. “I love cooking – I watch the Food Network.” But that doesn’t mean she’s rushing to plan her wedding. “Weddings are a tradition, but the rest is just made up by Hallmark. If a wedding was really about the people getting married, you’d just elope.”

Guys, Parties, Nude Scenes: Alba Answers Our Nosy Questions

What were your teen years like?

“At parties, I thought it was so pointless – you’re drinking beer in your basement, singing along to Sugar Ray! I was pretty serious, always thinking, Why am I here? What’s the point of living?”

How do you stay in shape?

“I bicycle, work out on an elliptical machine and walk uphill at a hard heart rate of almost 180 for an hour every day. I do some boxing and kicking, too, but since I work for 14 hours, I can’t do much more.”

What qualities do you like in men?

“I like strong, confident men. I have my shit together! I don’t procrastinate, and I need a guy who’s the same way. I’m not looking for someone to cheat on me, be an alcoholic or have a drug problem. I like men who will be there for me.”

Do you do nude scenes?