| by
Dennis Hensley
Though she’s
always dressed to impress as Gabrielle Solis, the feisty philanderess
on ABC’s runaway hit Desperate Housewives, in real life,
Eva Longoria is more about function than fashion. Take right
now, for instance. The actress’s been-through-it-all
gray Ugg boots don’t exactly go with the TK COLOR gown
she’s being photographed in for the cover of this magazine.
Good thing they’re out of camera frame. “I live
in these,” says Longoria, kicking up a well-worn heel.
“Uggs and True Religion jeans are my staples. It’s
not a fashion thing. It’s about comfort. I’m a
jeans and T-shirt kind of gal.”
While the
photographer changes film, the 5’ 2” former aerobics
instructor does a little samba dance to a soundtrack only
she can hear. Maybe she needs the bathroom? “I’m
trying to stay warm,” she says, laughing. Though it’s
a gorgeous spring day in West L.A., a breeze coming in from
the Pacific brings a slight chill to the proceedings. The
Texas-born Longoria, who is of Mexican descent, turns her
face into the sun and wonders aloud what the weather will
be like in Toronto, where she’s heading soon to shoot
the assassination thriller The Sentinel. “Good, I love
hot weather,” she chirps when told by a Canadian member
of the photo crew that the city can get quite warm in the
summer. “I’m like a flower,” she says, affecting
the melodramatic drawl of a Tennessee Williams heroine. “I
need the sun.”
Though on
this particular afternoon, Longoria seems right at home being
the center of so many people’s attention, it wasn’t
that long ago that she was just like a million other beautiful,
talented wannabe stars in Hollywood who might have driven
past this very studio on their way to an audition or acting
class. Today, Longoria’s not a working actor, with a
well-paying job she adores, she’s part of an international
phenomenon. “Awesome!” she marvels when informed
that just two nights ago at the White House correspondents
dinner, Laura Bush admitted that not only is she a DH fan,
she’s a desperate housewife herself. “My cousin
is her aide, so maybe my cousin got her to watch it,”
theorizes Longoria. “It’s nice to know the First
Lady is a desperate housewife. We all knew she was.”
Longoria,
whose pre-Housewives resume included stints on the TV series
The Young and the Restless and Dragnet, a year as Miss Corpus
Christi and a Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology from
Texas A & M, remembers vividly the exact moment when she
realized that she was part of something massive. It happened
backstage at the Oprah show, as these things often do, a few
weeks after the series premiered. “The studio audience
on Oprah doesn’t know in advance who the guests that
day are going to be,” explains Longoria. “So before
the show, I was peaking into the studio and I saw the person
who warms up the audience go, ‘Today, we have a special
treat for you. We have the cast of Des—‘. He didn’t
even get the word Desperate out before the whole audience
went crazy. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It gave me
goose bumps.”
It’s
a testament to Longoria’s charm and talent that she’s
able to make viewers care about Gabrielle, an adulterous,
ex fashion model who wants what she wants when she wants it
and she usually wants it hot. “I think what people love
about Gabrielle is that she’s on the journey to find
happiness,” says Longoria. “Whether or not she’s
going about it the right way, people still respect the purity
of the mission. Everybody wants to be happy. Plus, a lot of
women have been there--not that they’re doing the family
gardener like Gabrielle--but they’ve been there as far
as ‘I’m in a marriage that doesn’t exactly
fulfill me’.”
As for her
own off-screen love life, all Longoria will say is that it’s
difficult to have any kind of personal life going with a schedule
as relentless as hers. She did, however, find time to celebrate
her 30th birthday in March with a taste-of-home Mexican fiesta
during which she and her Housewives co-stars delighted in
destroying a paparazzi-shaped piñata. “I’m
glad to be out of my 20’s. They were hard,” reveals
Longoria, whose divorce from her husband of two years, General
Hospital actor Tyler Christopher, became final early this
year. “You learn a lot about yourself and about others
in your 20’s. I’m really ready for my 30’s.”
She’s
also ready to take a break from Hollywood and work in Toronto
for the first time on The Sentinel. “Everybody is giving
me tips about the city,” reports Longoria, who plays
a secret service trainee in the film, which also stars Michael
Douglas, Kim Basinger and Kiefer Sutherland. “Not one
person has said, ‘I hate Toronto.’ Everyone says,
‘You’ll love it, you’ll love it’.”
And she’s excited to give Gabrielle some time off as
well. “I love my part in The Sentinel because it’s
not about my body and lingerie and what I’m wearing,”
she says, laughing. “It’s about the story and
the characters. I’m excited to venture into this new
territory.”
Longoria hopes
that by taking on grittier projects like The Sentinel she
can avoid being typecast as a teddy-clad sex bomb, not that
there’s anything wrong with teddy-clad sex bombs. “When
I started Desperate Housewives, I knew I was going to have
to balance that cheeky, comedic side with something more dramatic
when we were on hiatus,” explains Longoria, who filmed
a supporting role in the Christian Bale drama Harsh Times
during her Christmas hiatus. Does that long term career strategy
ever affect her style and what she chooses to wear to events?
“Oh yeah,” she says. “There’s a lot
of thought and time that goes into that stuff. You can easily
get overwhelmed with ‘Oh my God, what do I wear?’
so I let my stylist deal with it.”
Besides, Longoria’s
got more than enough to deal with as it is. With Housewives
going global, a movie to shoot, and a lucrative endorsement
deal with Loreal cosmetics, her dance card couldn’t
possible be any fuller. The trick, she admits, is finding
the energy to dance. “I’m so tired,” she
says, with a dazed laugh. “I always dreamed of being
on a hit show and getting a Loreal contract and doing movies.
Now, that it’s all happened, it’s overwhelming
when it comes to the time involved. Not that I didn’t
expect that. It’s just to dream it is a different thing
than for it to come true and to have to do it.” Still,
the one time Wendy’s counter girl is determined to make
the most of her moment in the sun. “This time is my
life is chaotic and overwhelming,” she says, “but
it’s also fun and exciting. I want to enjoy every moment.”
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