Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria
words by > Bret Love
Living in Paradise
*Longoria speaks out on acting, fame and Latin pride.
Meet enough Hollywood stars, and you’ll quickly learn that few will willingly embrace the “overnight sensation” tag. Like many career professionals, most celebrities yearn to be taken seriously and want to believe that their remarkable fame and fortune is the result of hard work, dedication and determination, not perfect cheekbones and serendipitous twists of fate.
Not Eva Longoria, the luscious and lovely Latina star of ABC’s tongue-in-cheek serial comedy-drama, “Desperate Housewives.” “I don’t take anything seriously,” she admits with a smile so bright it could light the room by itself. “Critics, reviews, paparazzi, the public… We’re not curing cancer here. We’re acting. It’s a simple process, so I always think that what we do is silly. We’re playing make-believe every day and getting paid.”
Sitting in a swanky Los Angeles hotel room, draped in a blanket while sipping contentedly from a vanilla latte, the charming Longoria seems almost the exact opposite of her TV character, the conniving (not to mention philandering) gold-digger Gabrielle Solis. Petite, quiet and intelligent, with a dry sense of humor and a warm laugh, Longoria’s refreshing lack of pretense seems rooted in her humble childhood, growing up the youngest of four sisters on a ranch in Corpus Christi, Texas. Though she is of Mexican descent, Eva was the only one of her siblings born with dark skin, hair and eyes. Cursed with the nickname prieta fea (meaning “ugly, dark one”), for years she questioned whether she might have been adopted.
But like so many ugly ducklings that eventually blossom into gorgeous swans, Longoria’s underdog past left her feeling like she had something to prove. By the age of 23, she had earned her Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology (the study of body movement) from Texas A&M-Kingsville and won the title of Miss Corpus Christi USA, which led to her discovery by a theatrical agent and eventual move to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.
“I was a late bloomer,” she acknowledges earnestly. “Acting wasn’t a childhood dream for me. I didn’t long for it. We didn’t grow up with movies, because we couldn’t really afford it. We grew up with network TV, watching ‘Three’s Company’ and ‘The Jeffersons.’
I didn’t grow up looking at movie stars and going, ‘I want to be that!’ My role models were my mom, my aunts, my sisters… the people in my life.”
Despite her initial lack of thespian ambitions, fortune began to smile upon Longoria almost immediately upon her Western migration, rewarding her with small roles on shows such as “Beverly Hills 90210” and the ill-fated “LA Dragnet.”
Like so many A-list actresses before her (including Julianne Moore, Demi Moore and Meg Ryan), daytime soap operas ultimately provided Longoria’s initial career momentum when she was cast as Isabella Williams on “The Young & the Restless,” for which she won an ALMA (American Latino Media Arts) Award in 2002. It was that role that garnered notice with casting directors and eventually led to her audition for “Desperate Housewives.”
Series creator Marc Cherry loosely based the idea for Gabrielle Solis on a childhood friend named Gabriel Solis, whose wealthy Latin family had the biggest house on the block and whose ethnicity was never really an issue. “As soon as I read the script, I knew it was pretty special,” Longoria recalls. “[Marc] asked what I thought of the writing as a whole, and I told him I had no idea because I’d only read my part. He laughed, and I got the job. He thought my answer was completely Gabrielle!”
But while the now 31-year-old actress may have initially sensed the show’s inherent appeal, she also admits to having no clue that it would immediately develop into such a phenomenon. “I was probably the most surprised [among the cast], because I was just really naive. Teri [Hatcher], Nicollette [Sheridan], Felicity [Huffman] and Marcia [Cross] had all experienced hit shows before. Marcia kept telling me, ‘Get ready, it’s going to be big!’ And I’m like, ‘Ready for what? What are you talking about?’ Then it hit, and I understood. It was great, though. I couldn’t keep up with all the good news.”
In case you’ve been hiding out in a cave for the past two years, the show follows the melodramatic lives of four upscale suburban women dealing with everything from the pressures of being a working mother and the hassles of dating as a single mom to unwanted pregnancies and affairs with teenage gardeners. The latter two storylines have made Longoria one of the show’s most beloved breakout stars, as her shallow, materialistic character engages in manipulative battles of wits with her felonious (and remarkably jealous) husband. At turns sexy and silly, vengeful and vulnerable, Gabrielle’s larger-than-life persona affords the actress a rare network television opportunity to showcase multiple shades and colors.
According to Longoria, that depth and diversity is part of what made “Desperate Housewives” such a massive success in its inaugural season. “I think it’s the first show that actually exercises the voice of the modern woman. It’s not ‘Leave it to Beaver,’ it’s not ‘The Brady Bunch,’ and it’s not ‘The Cosby Show.’ It really reflects the current status of women in today’s society. You can be married, be divorced, have children, not have children, go to work, stay home… You have so many choices and, because of that, I think women identify with one or all of the four women on the show. I think it’s universally successful because women in every country deal with those issues.”
That success has afforded the actress numerous personal and professional opportunities, from her role opposite Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland in the recent film The Sentinel, to being offered the chance to produce and host this year’s ALMA Awards, which she describes as the Grammys, Emmys and Oscars rolled into one. In truth, Longoria seems just as passionate about her involvement in the Latino community as she is about her burgeoning acting career.
“[Being Latino] defines what I do, how I do it, how I present myself and who I am,” she insists. “All my charity work is Latin-oriented, because I didn’t have a famous Latin role model growing up, so I want to expose myself to those children who can see themselves in me and aspire to be successful like me. I think the media portrayal of Latinos in television is often negative, but [the ALMAs] recognizes the positive images of Latinos in entertainment. That’s why I wanted to be a part of it.”
Of course, success always comes at a price, and Longoria and her high-profile co-stars have all come under intense media scrutiny since the show broke out. First came the reports of behind-the-scenes bickering on the show’s second season set, with rumors of diva-like behavior from its most experienced star. Then came the so-called sophomore slump, which found slight ratings dips for both “Desperate Housewives” and ABC’s other huge 2005 hit, “Lost.” But Longoria seems to dismiss such talk, pointing out that the show still finishes in the top five nearly every week.
More difficult to deal with is the constant tabloid attention on her personal life, which includes a high-profile relationship with NBA star Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs. Longoria has been the subject of all manner of wild rumors, including one that involved her fleeing Frederick’s of Hollywood in purple panties and bra and yelling at the valet to pull her silver BMW (which she claims not to own) around because her golden retriever (which she also claims not to own) was going into emergency surgery. The actress tries to take such things in stride but blames a glut of new tabloids and the rise in internet gossip for the seemingly unquenchable need for fresh celebrity dirt.
“It’s hard to protect yourself from the media,” she laments. “If you don’t give them what they want, they’re going to make it up anyway. I did a wonderful interview [to promote] The Sentinel, then they asked me about personal stuff. Talking about Tony and me, I said, ‘I’m the one that’s been married, divorced, engaged and broken up, so I’m the experienced one in the relationship. He’s only been in one serious relationship.’ But it got torn apart by tabloids, saying Tony’s only ever been with one person. I was like, ‘Where do you get that from? You got that from this beautiful article?’ I dated somebody before Tony that I was very private about, so they were like, ‘Trouble in Paradise: Eva Doesn’t Speak!’ With Tony, I’ve been open about it, saying, ‘We’re great. We’re in love.’ They’re like, ‘Trouble in Paradise: Eva Speaks Out!’ You cannot win.”
But, true to her humble roots, Longoria makes it clear she doesn’t want to come across as ungrateful for her success. Unlike so many of her A-list peers, this gorgeous Texas girl seems to understand and appreciate her good fortune, and she credits her family and friends (and, of course, Parker) with keeping her grounded even when the maelstrom of media fame is churning all around her.
“I consider myself really blessed to have the show,” she concludes warmly. “I think the craziness comes when you start to believe your own hype and get caught up in all of the superficiality of our business. Felicity Huffman gave me the best advice: ‘It’s all about the work. Just always make it about the work, and good things will come.’ That’s what I’ve been doing.”