Jessica Biel is the cover girl for the February issue of Vogue Magazine, and while I think the cover shot is lovely, the other photos inside the magazine are… not good. Like, how would you style Jessica Biel if you got the chance? I would keep her makeup very simple and light, and put her in softer, feminine clothes that would give her a chance to look less masculine. But Vogue slapped on some too-dark lipstick and tried to make her look tomboy-ish in some of these photos, which isn’t such a stretch. It’s so much of a “not a stretch” I was looking for Biel’s Adam’s apple. The other word that keeps bouncing around my head is “horsey”. Jessica comes across as very horsey, like Julia Roberts or Sarah Jessica Parker, but not in a good way. Anyway, the Vogue slideshow is here, and the full Vogue interview is here. Now, for some of the highlights:

On her parents: “They are major outdoor people,” she says. “They rafted the Grand Canyon when they were in their 20s. They are an incredible couple.” Her father, Jon, worked for GE for many years and ran his own business consultancy in Boulder. “He is extremely motivated and ambitious,” she says. “I get those qualities from him.”

About her posing half-naked on Gear to get out of her Seventh Heaven contract: “I really wanted to go to college, and it all kind of happened at the same time. I did this photo shoot; the photo shoot came out; it was terribly embarrassing. I had to apologize to everybody, including my parents. It was a big learning experience: learning how to have boundaries and how to say no.”

Her empathy for young girls: “I have this overwhelming motherly feeling toward them. Just do what you gotta do, girls! Hold it together! I wish everyone would just leave them alone.”

Her Hollywood complaints: “The last year in this business has been harsh,” says Biel. “There’s no material. Nobody wants to make dramas. And that’s what we all want to do.” What is getting produced, she says, are “commercial movies—horror movies, big romantic comedies, and action movies. Those can be great, but you don’t want to do only those kinds of films. You can’t live on éclairs alone. You have to have a spinach salad every now and again.”

On her new film Valentine‘s Day: “I really get to play crazy,” she says gleefully. “A girl who has hit the wall with wanting to find a man. And I get to do some broad comedy; it’s a little Lucille Ball-esque.”

On her style: “I like really überfeminine, classic-looking things mixed with something rougher around the edges. I’ve been looking at Rihanna a lot, checking her out. She’s got something going on that I am sort of craving a little bit.”

On the breakup rumors between her and Justin Timberlake: “It’s definitely been weird and sort of bizarre to deal with. But you have to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Honestly, I look at a magazine and they know more than I do.” Last night at dinner I brought it up and was met with steely resolve. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I don’t feel the need to clear anything up. It’s the most precious thing that I have in my life, and I care about it so much that I don’t care about what anyone says or thinks. I have just not addressed it in any real way, and I’m not going to. It’s mine. And I really like that about it.”

[From Vogue]

Okay, so the interview wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t like some of Jessica’s infamous interviews, where she waxes rhapsodically about her beauty or tries to put her name together with “Oscar”. But there’s still a whiff of the self-absorbed, delusional girl there too, especially when she won’t stop bitching about how there is “no material”. Uh, there is material, Jessica, they just aren’t hiring you. Oh, and does anyone else think she was comparing herself to Lucille Ball?

Vogue cover and additional photos, courtesy of Vogue online.