A champion for diversity within the American film industry, multi-hyphenate Eva Longoria said she doesn’t think there is “an evil agenda” when it comes to major studios shunning minority creatives. Speaking at the Red Sea Film Festival, the director said that she doesn’t believe “there are studio execs in a tower saying, ‘I don’t want to hire people of color.’ They hire people who they worked with their entire lives. If they worked with Tom, Bob and Frank, they are going to hire Tom, Bob and Frank.”
The accomplished creative is also an activist, having championed Latino voices throughout her work — including having all Latino heads of department in her feature debut “Flamin’ Hot” — and founding The Eva Longoria Foundation 15 years ago to help “help Latinas build better futures for themselves and their families through education and entrepreneurship.”
“I started the foundation because I was getting so many requests from numerous charities but I wasn’t making a difference in any particular cause,” she recalled of her motivation at the time. “I knew I wanted to help women and Latinas specifically because these are the women I grew up with, so we started the charity so women could reach their full potential and have economic freedom and independence.”
“When I read a script, it is clear to me very quickly if I want to direct or be in it: does it say something? Does it have a cultural or female perspective that we need to hear and see? I look for things that I can produce with purpose,” she added of her work as a producer. “I try to find purpose-driven projects because I believe that, if we are going to change the world, it is going to be through pop culture and media has the biggest impact in pop culture.”
Longoria recently ticked a big item off her bucket list: to play her first role in Spanish. The Mexican-American multi-hyphenate returned to television earlier in the year on Apple TV+ series “Land of Women,” where she plays a New York socialite forced to flee to a Spanish wine town. “I didn’t grow up speaking Spanish,” she said. “I am Mexican-American from Texas, my parents speak Spanish but were told not to teach us the language so we would assimilate and not have an accent.”
“I remember moving to Hollywood looking how I look and still not getting Latino roles,” she continued. “They would ask me to do a Spanish accent or speak in Spanish and I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t Latin enough or white enough to get roles. I played Italians a lot but it was only later in life that I learned Spanish.”
Longoria learned the language at the age of 38 after marrying Mexican producer José Bastón. Their six-year-old son Santiago is being raised bilingual. “My son is fluent [in Spanish] and I love that. Holding on to your language is very important culturally. We want our son to navigate the world with his culture.”
The actor, also a producer and director, said she typically likes to do all three jobs because she “wants to control everything.” However, when she was asked to direct episodes of “Land of Women,” she turned it down so she could “focus on the language” as she was “really nervous” about the challenge. She did, however, produce the series. “I think as a woman, we naturally can multitask. Women are natural directors, decision-makers, multi-hyphenates, For me, it’s very easy, and easier when I do all three.”
When asked each of her creative roles she is the proudest of, Longoria was quick to reply: “Being a mom.” “It is so much easier when you have a child because you have extreme focus on what’s important. Before children, you are the center of the universe and I said yes to everything. Now, the word ‘no’ is such a beautiful word. If it takes time away from my husband and son, it has to be really worth it. It’s been so much easier to prioritize what I want to do because he is the driver of everything in my life.”
Despite being thrilled about motherhood, the creative was quick to shut down the possibility of having more kids, saying she is “too old.”
“I would have loved to have 100 kids but I started very late,” she said. “I had [my son] at 43, so it’s been a blessing for me to have accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish and now be able to enjoy motherhood.”
