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Curvy Jessica Alba of Fantastic Four fame may have a screen image as a sexy action girl but in reality she's a bit of a goofball.

And it's something the star gets to play up in her new romantic comedy Good Luck Chuck.

She takes on the role of accident prone penguin handler, Cam Wexler, who enters the life of bachelor Dane Cook.

" I'm quite clumsy in my personal life," admits the 26-year-old Californian, "more than any person should be, I think.

" It's kind of a joke. I usually have to be incredibly self-aware - even just walking in heels - so it was fun being able to not hide that part of me.

"In this movie I really got to be goofy and have fun. I related to it in a personal way."

Best known for Sin City and the TV series Dark Angel, as well as playing Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four films, this is a change of pace for Jessica.

"I haven't really done any comedies before. People just didn't think that was my thing," she admits.

It was watching her cracking jokes while hosting the MTV Movie Awards two years ago that made Dane Cook realise she could co-star with him in Good Luck Chuck.

And Jessica was ready for a few laughs after doing so many dark action films.

She explains: "It's a dark place you go to for the horror movies and a happy place for the comedy."

What appealed to her about Good Luck Chuck is how the characters seem realistic.

Says Jessica: "I'm not a huge fan of romantic comedies that have come out in the past five years because I feel a lot of them were too soft. In this one they're crazy, they're eccentric, but at least they're real."

She and Dane instantly hit it off on the set of the film even if, in one lively scene, they ended up bashing their front teeth together while going for a romantic clinch. Jessica came off worst, but she thinks the resulting injury may help her land more comedy roles.

"I chipped my front top tooth doing a kiss with Dane," she reveals. "We were tumbling over couches and stuff and his teeth slammed into my teeth.

"I now have a bond on my tooth and when I take it off I look like Jim Carrey in Dumb And Dumber! I look really silly, but in a way it's kind of neat. I can take this thing off and be someone else for a little while."

Fortunately there were no such problems with her other co-stars, even the trained penguins.

" They don't like everybody but they liked me right away," she says. " You can tickle them on their neck and they lay down and kind of purr."

It may be light comedy but Good Luck Chuck has a message as well, highlighting the way we can bring misfortune on ourselves. Cook's unlucky-in-love character loses every girl he dates.

"There are some people who bad things always happen to, so I think that we can carry around an energy," says Jessica.

"Then we enforce that upon everything, whether it's crashing cars or getting into relationships and not finding your match.

"I think it's about creating patterns. Sometimes if you're not willing to break them and learn from them, you just kind of go around in circles."

She may be a beautiful starlet but even Jessica admits dating isn't easy.

"If I have a crush on someone, I get all squirmy and giggly. I never know what to say and I get completely stupid," she says.

So her solution is to become a little sarcastic. "That's the best way to hang out with guys because that's what they like," she believes. "They don't like quiet little things."

Jessica takes a break from comedy with her next film, the medical drama Awake with Hayden Christensen. Then she'll pop up again in Mike Meyer's comedy The Love Guru.

Breaking down the action girl mould with this role is the second time Jessica has challenged how the industry see her.

Being part-Latino (her mother's of Danish descent, her father Mexican), she feels she has to face racial stereotyping.

While she started out in movies at 12-years-old in Camp Nowhere, too many offers were typecast by her olive colouring, "I always used to get scripts for things like, 'Maria, the janitor's daughter who hangs around with the white kids'," she continues. "I never thought about being a Latin girl until the film industry made me more aware of it.

She doesn't even speak Spanish. "I have a great accent because I grew up hearing it in the neighbourhood," explains Jessica., "but I have no idea what I'm saying."

Her conservative Catholic upbringing has resulted in a no-nudity clause in her contracts, out of respect for her parents.

She sued Playboy magazine in 2006 (later withdrawn after an apology) over an unauthorised publicity shot of her in a bikini being used on the cover.

If she looks in good shape on screen it's because Jessica likes to work out. As a child she spent a lot of time in hospitals with lung problems, so staying healthy is important.

" I always train before a movie because it's actually quite exhausting," she adds.

"I mean, you're on the set for 14 hours on a good day. In order to be able to do that you've got to be fit."

? Good Luck Chuck is released this Friday.