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EVA

On directing her first feature film, seeing the glass as always half full and controlling her own destiny

BY MARA REINSTEIN

Eva Longoria has T-minus 44 minutes before she’s called back to the Albuquerque set of her new movie and intends to fill every second of it. Seated in her trailer with a plate of lamb chops and Portobello mushrooms in front of her, the actress says, “I’m the person who definitely can’t sit still and knows there aren’t more than 24 hours in a day. So, I’m very efficient with my time and really good at multitasking.”

Simultaneously eating lunch and talking about her busy life to an interviewer is the least of it. She’s the married mom of a four-year-old son, Santiago. She balances her acting career with philanthropic work and social activism. And she runs a production company, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, to showcase diverse talents from underrepresented communities.

Longoria also recently sat in the director’s chair for her first feature film—and it’s a lively and inspirational sizzler. Flamin’ Hot (streaming on Hulu Friday, June 9) chronicles Richard Montañez ( Jesse Garcia), an unassuming janitor at a Frito-Lay plant who ends up helping create the line’s hugely popular Flamin’

Hot Cheetos and rising through the company ranks. The drama debuted to wild applause at the South by Southwest [SXSW] Festival in March.

Longoria, 48, admits she wasn’t familiar with Montañez’ improbable underdog tale. But after reading the script, the actress—who had previ

ously directed episodic television— knew she had to devour the project. “I am Richard,” she says. “I’m going to be nicer to people who tell me not to do something. Like, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t become an actor and you really shouldn’t move to Hollywood and you won’t succeed there and you’re a woman so you probably shouldn’t direct.’”

Indeed, though it’s tempting to assume the straight-shooting and genetically blessed Longoria traipsed a golden path from her native Corpus Christi, Texas, to a plum role on the 2004-12 smash dramedy Desperate Housewives, she had to summon her moxie every step of the way. As a lowly TV extra in Hollywood in the late ‘90s, she recalls, “[My roommates and I] were so poor in Hollywood that I’d take toilet paper and snacks and water bottles from the set to bring home.” (Good luck trying to spot her walking through the Cage & Fish office in a stray episode of Ally McBeal.)

Landing the Flamin’ Hot assignment was no easy feat, either: “Everyone wanted it, so I had to give a presentation to the studio and pitch myself on how I pictured the movie. It was like, ‘OK, the camera is going to go here and the choreography will look like this.’ I was singularly focused.” And her dedication on the set was evident.

“Eva is an actor’s director and it was a dream to work with her because she’s so collaborative while still having a specific vision of the story she wanted to tell,” says

Annie Gonzalez, who plays Richard’s loyal wife, Judy. “I learned so much from her.”

Longoria talked to Parade during her break from filming the sequel to Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible,

No Good, Very Bad Day for Disney+. True to form, she packed in a slew of interesting details.

This film is obviously a labor of love. But why direct in the first place?

People think I’m an actorturned-director. But I’ve always been a director. I’ve always been fascinated with the process of putting together a project and having control of the final product. As an actor, you stand on the mark and say lines. But you don’t write any of the words coming out of your mouth. So, you’re at the mercy of the process. I felt like I didn’t have control.

How did you learn the craft?

I used Desperate Housewives as my film school because I was on the set for 10 years and really paid attention. Our budgets were movie budgets, so I was curious and asked a lot of questions. Like, what does that do? What do you mean when you say a “50 lens”? I was an annoying fly on the wall. I felt like I wasn’t reaching my creative potential, so doing more always made sense to me.

Honestly, how often are you eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos now?

Not a lot. Those chemicals are real! But the idea of spicy food is in the DNA of our community in a very authentic way. And I want people who see it to think, Wow, that guy did it with that background and adversity? I can do anything, too.

Your own background is fascinating in that you graduated from Texas A&M University-Kingsville with a degree in kinesiology. What

does that mean in the context of a career?

(Laughs). Like, What the

f—k is that?! You’re studying the body. I wanted to be a physical therapist. My dream was to work for the Dallas Cowboys.

That’s quite a deferred dream. What happened?

So, I couldn’t pay for my senior year. My girlfriend said, “Hey, there’s this scholarship pageant [Miss Corpus Christi USA] and you should do it because the winner gets money.” Not a beauty pageant; a scholarship pageant. I was looking at the prizes and I knew that if I even finished in fourth place, the money would take care of my books. I ended up winning it and got to finish my degree. But in the prize package was a trip to Hollywood. I thought it would be fun. So, I took the trip maybe three weeks after my graduation. When I got to L.A., everybody was like, “Oh my God, you’re Latina. You’re going to do so well!” This was when Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin broke out, right? I was like, “OK, I’ll be an actress.” I mean, just like that.

No second thoughts? Really?

I figured because I had a degree, I could always get a job. My parents [Ella and Enrique] were not alarmed at all and thought the same thing. They were like, “You’ll work somewhere.” And I remember I had, like, $26, in my bank account. But I still told my mom to just send my suitcases from college. Literally, my suitcases went from college to L.A. I had never even been outside Texas at the time, except for Mexico. I remember seeing the palm trees and thinking it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.

Was it a struggle to succeed?

I ended up getting a job at a temp agency as a headhunter. I was so good at it that the CEO of the company said to me that I had a future there and should really give up the acting thing. Like, “You know how many people make it in Hollywood? One in a million!” But I really believed I was going to be a successful actor.

It’s not an arrogance thing—I’m just a glass half-full person. But this headhunting job stabilized me to pursue my dreams. I’d go to auditions in between this 9-to-5 job. Even when I got on The Young and

the Restless in 2001, I still stayed on for two more years.

What do you remember about your first official acting gig?

It was the original Beverly Hills, 90210

[in 2000]. I was absolutely terrified because it was just one line and I had to hit my mark opposite Luke Perry in an airport. It’s a lot harder to have one line than five-to-ten. I hated my hair and makeup because I’m from Texas and wanted to pack it up to Jesus and wear a lot of product on my face and I had to take it all down. But I loved the experience. It was exciting! Then I got more lines on other shows. By the time Housewives came along, I had touched every rung on the ladder.

On Housewives, you were the ingenue among a cast of TV vets. Did you feel extra pressure because of it?

Oh, it was the opposite. I was like a puppy dog because Felicity [Huffman], Marcia [Cross] and Teri [Hatcher] all had hit shows. I remember when they told us we were going to be on Oprah,I wanted to pass out in the makeup

trailer. But they had all been on her show at some point and were like, “Oh yeah, she’s nice.” I will say that Marcia and Felicity, in particular, were the sweetest human beings and so kind to me and took me under their wings. Felicity taught me about the craft of acting. Marcia was an emotional pillar of support and was like, “Honey, if it gets to be too much . . . ”

Did it get to be too much?

It was a global phenomenon! I remember we went to London and there was a crazy crowd, and I was like, oh my God, I wonder who’s here. Like, is it

Madonna or Bono? And I asked the driver who was staying there and he was like, “You are.” I had never been to London in my life. Why would these people know who I was? I loved being that naïve. And I loved going to work every single day. I didn’t even care that I was never nominated for an award. When Felicity won the Emmy, I felt like we had all won.

That was your last TV series. Surely you must have been offered a ton of roles in the past decade.

I say no to everything. Because if it’s not innovative or interesting, I don’t want to do it. I also feel like I have PTSD from Housewives because this was an era when we had to film 24 episodes a year and worked 18 hours a day for 11 months of the year. It was

hard. So, when I get offered the lead of a TV show, my stomach drops. I don’t want to be hooked up to the machine. Like, why would I want to play a detective for seven years?

So, there’s nothing you passed on

that you now regret?

No, nothing. Though I would have loved to do

Fleabag or Killing Eve. Those were both so fun. But I will say that I did just finish a six-episode series for Apple TV+. I play a woman who finds out that her husband was a Bernie Madoff type and has to flee with her daughter and her aging mother with Alzheimer’s. It’s very fish-out-of-water. And I speak Spanish about 70 percent of the time, which was a first for me. And I got to film it in Catalonia, which is wine country in Spain.

Did you uproot your family to Spain?

I did for six months. And I loved it because Spain abides by an eight-hour workday because of the unions. There is no overtime. I got to wake up with my son and go to bed with my son and shot a TV show in between. That’s unheard of in our industry.

Is it challenging to maintain an international career and raise a young son?

When he was eight weeks old, I had to go shoot Dora

and the Lost City of Gold in Australia. Then I had to go to Europe and Dubai. By the time he was three months old and getting on a plane to go to San Antonio, the flight attendant was like, “That baby has platinum status. He gets a free drink coupon if he wants it!” But I have a village, so it’s not like I do it alone. My husband [executive

José Bastón] can work anywhere in the world. And my son is very privileged but knows that we don’t live in Los Angeles—we live in the world. And this world is full of amazing cultures.

As a celebrity, do you feel a responsibility to be philanthropic and make social change?

No, I think it’s everybody’s responsibility to be compassionate. The myth is that you have to be rich and famous to be a philanthropist. That’s not true. Some of the greatest changes we’ve seen in the world have been led by, say, disgruntled moms seeking justice. All it takes is one human being who wants change.

For all your success, are you the kind of person who worries, where will my career be in 10 years?

I would like to think that women don’t have a shelf life in this industry, but they still do. We still toss aside women of a certain age, and we can’t take our foot off the gas because Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh won Oscars. So, there is this anxiety of like,

I have to hurry up and work as much as I can for as long as I can, for as long as quote-unquote they will allow me. That’s why I’ve become a producer and director. I don’t want to ask anybody for permission to hire me or to work. So hopefully I’m extending some longevity to my career that is not based on my age or my looks or my gender.

In terms of directing, what’s your ultimate goal? A lofty award?

I presented at the Oscars this year and felt the camaraderie in the room. And yeah, I think we all dream of like,

Oh, I hope one day I can win the Oscar.

But I don’t do work for awards. I know it’s easy for people to say that. But if that’s the goal, you miss the journey.

PICKS PARADE

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2023-06-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

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