Alex Vega - Sleepover Interview

VEGA WANTS TO GO BEYOND TEEN ROLES.
Alexa Vega/Sleepover Interview by Paul Fischer in Los Angeles.

Alexa Vega may be about to hit 16, but the former Spy Kid wants it known that, in no way, does she want to be compared "with those other girls" that include competitors such as Lindsay Lohan or Hilary Duff. While Vega may well have sung on the soundtracks of the Spy Kids films, she says she is putting her own musical ambitions well and truly on hold. "I really wanted to pursue music, but all those other girls are doing it and it is annoying," Vega says laughingly, but somewhat seriously. "I am so over that. I did it for Spy Kids and it was a lot of fun but it was before all the other girls were doing it and every single actor right now is trying to make an album, so I think it is so old and over." She'd rather express her music somewhat differently. "I am taking belly dancing now," and Alexa wants to make it clear that it's going very well, thank you very much. "My hips are double jointed so I can do it really easily."

And unlike 'those other girls' Vega refers to, this actress is determined to avoid the kind of teen frenzy associated with the likes of Duff and Lohan, as she maintains a more realistic perspective on her career. "Well the thing is, I hope to be less exposed, which is nice so that people will know Alexa Vega as opposed to the Spy Kid girl. That has been happening lately, which makes me feel better. As far as being overly exposed is concerned, it feels like you end up going away too quickly, like you hear so much about some of these girl actors that are "they won't be here in two years" because they are just so much right now. It is a huge hype and I don't want that to happen with me and I hope that doesn't happen."

Vega takes her shoes off and is in a typically hyper mood as she talks about her first post-Spy Kids film, Sleepover, a charming coming-of-age comedy in which she plays an over-protected adolescent whose post-junior high school sleepover evolves into a ferocious contest between the cool kids and her own friends, in an irreverent scavenger hunt, with the winner attaining the cool lunch spot come high school. Vega says that she was clearly looking for a film to be as different as the trilogy of Spy Kid films that launched her career. "I wanted something with a good transition from Spy Kids to growing up and I thought that this was a good film," Vega explains. "I wanted it to be a nice, subtle adjustment, so that parents would be going: Oh ok, she is growing up too quickly."

Vega says that she responded to Sleepover because she was able to identify with the material. "I experienced a regular junior high and so there's so much reality to this film, of what you have to go through to be cool. This film has great messages in it and is something I think that young girls [and] parents would enjoy, even some young guys because there's plenty of cute girls to be seen", says Vega, smilingly.

As for her own high school memories, Vega recalls, "they were always really bad, never really went well for me. Going in first off as a freshman into regular high school is really tough, because people already make fun of you. Going in as an actor is even harder and going in as a Spy Kid, was the worst thing that could have happened, because you get so many jokes about it, I don't know, girls are really, really catty at this age."

Vega is settling into her formative adolescence, while at the same time trying to decide on future projects - but not your typical teenage fare if you please. "I think I am too old to be doing teen movies," says Vega, laughingly. "I am just kind of annoyed, because you have all these teen movies coming out with usually either Lindsay Lohan or Hilary Duff doing four of the exact teen movies over and over again. You know you see, well that is good to know. Right now the teen movies are a fad and it gets really annoying." Yet fad or not, Vega is still a teen star with her fan base in toe. So for the actress, the challenge is to try and maintain that while shifting identity which is removed from her teenage counterparts. "You have to be very careful about that, as most of the audience that I have are the younger kids because of Spy Kids. So I don't want a drastic change from Spy Kids to some kind of adult role, which is why I decided to do this as my transition."

As for her personal life, Alexa says she is single. "I have never actually had a real boyfriend, because I am not allowed to date yet." Apparently, career and adolescent normalcy are Alexa's first priorities.

SLEEPOVER OPENS OCTOBER