Over Eva Longoria's dead body
Desperate Housewives star on the movie biz and 7 ft. statues.
CraveOnline: You are a trooper, but this is the first movie that's really been all on you, isn't it?
Eva Longoria: I know, it's so funny, but I forgot that, because I did The Sentinel and I did Harsh Times but I haven't really carried a movie, I guess. Someone asked me yesterday, "How does it feel to carry a movie?", and I'm like, "Oh God, now you just scared me!" It's fun. I think it's a light and fun movie, and I think that it's a nice change in the box office right now, from all the from all the heavy Oscar stuff, all the heavy dramas, and all the blood and gore over Christmas. We tried to go to the movies so many times, and it was like Saw IV... Even I Am Legend was zombies, and I was like, "I want something fun, something that I can lose myself in."
CraveOnline: Well, I saw Alien Vs. Predator over the holidays...
Eva Longoria: So did we!
CraveOnline: Tony's idea, right?
Eva Longoria: He's a huge Alien Vs. Predator fan, and for the longest time, he's been wanting the Alien and the Predator statues. We're building our house in San Antonio, and we have a theater, and he wanted the statues for the theater. I looked everywhere for them, and I finally found them, and that's what he got for Christmas, the seven-foot Alien, and the seven-foot Predator. They're life-size, giant action figures. The Alien has the drool, and when he opened them for Christmas he was so excited, and when I saw them for the first time, I was like, "Oh my God, that's so scary! I don't want that in the house!" So, now I don't want them in the house, and I'm the one that got them.
CraveOnline: If you got him giant action figures for Christmas, what did Tony get you?
Eva Longoria: have a good husband. He got me high heels and diamonds. He got me Christian Louboutin shoes, and a diamond tennis bracelet.
CraveOnline: Are you wearing it today?
Eva Longoria: I'm not, because its getting fitted. He also got me, which was really sweet, he has three championship rings, and every time you get a championship ring, they give the wives a championship pendant which is an exact replica, so it's the exact same thing. So I was there for 2005, and for 2007, so I have two pendants, but I wasn't there for 2003, so he made me the 2003 pendant, so I would have the same three rings that he has. That was probably the best Christmas gift.
CraveOnline: Can you relate to what Jessica Simpson is going through, getting blamed for her athlete boyfriend's playing?
Eva Longoria: I think it's very odd that she's dating a number 9, and a Tony. It's so Single White Female. No, I love Jessica. You know, when I first started dating Tony, I got the same flack, and this was so many years ago that people don't remember, but if he had a bad game, it was my fault. If he got injured, it was my fault. If he had a good game, it wasn't because of me, you know? Believe me, they are not thinking of us when they are on the field, particularly Tony Romo, who has ten linemen coming at him. Do you think that he is really thinking about Jessica the moment that he is about to get sacked? You have to weather that for a while, and once people get over it, they kind of get used to you, but people, especially with the Spurs, and the Cowboys, these big, big teams, the fans feel like they own them, like, "That's OUR team. Who are you to come into our team?" So it took a while for me to be accepted by that community. It's truly a whole other subculture.
CraveOnline: When they asked you to play the character that's this high-powered, driven woman, what do you tell them? Are there things that you don't want to do, things that are too similar to Gabrielle, or are there things where you're like, "Okay, that's fun, we can do that"?
Eva Longoria: That was probably my biggest challenge, differentiating Gabrielle from Kate, because I thought that people might think they are similar in their bitchiness, but I thought that Kate was way more justified because she dies on her wedding day. She lost the man that she loved and she just wasn't ready to give it up. I would be the exact same way. I told Tony, "I would totally haunt you, and not move on."
CraveOnline: Besides doing press junkets for the next month, what are you doing during the down time that you have during the writer's strike?
Eva Longoria: I've actually had a great time, because I've been home, and being a newlywed, it's been fun to be home, and married, and cooking. I've been cooking, and eating, cooking and eating. I keep telling everyone that I've gained, like, ten pounds just being on strike.
CraveOnline: If you've gained weight, it doesn't show.
Eva Longoria: You haven't seen my butt, that's why. And Basketball games, it's nice to actually see all of them, because usually I only make it to half, and now I'm traveling with Tony, going everywhere and just watching, it's fun.
CraveOnline: What are you cooking and eating?
Eva Longoria: Tony and I are fine diners, and I cook a lot, so I'll cook out of the French cookbooks. My motto is, "If you can read, then you can cook", because I can do any recipe. We went to a restaurant one time, and Tony loved the potato puree. It was the best potato puree ever, and I asked the chef, "Can I have the recipe?", and we went to the back, and he showed me how he did it and everything. It is so much work to make potato puree. That's why they give you so little, in restaurants it's like, that much, because it takes so much time to make. I just like to eat and be at home. I'm really homey and it's funny how domestic we are. Because Desperate Housewives works ten months out of the year, and then I usually do a movie in the hiatus, I'm always working year round, so for this strike to come around, it was kind of nice for someone to go, "You have to stop working." For TV people it was like, "Oh, okay, we get a break." but know I'm like, "We really need to get back to work!"
CraveOnline: So the movie career is still going strong, were you ever worried that it would be too hard to do both?
Eva Longoria: I thought it would be hard, schedule-wise, but I've been really lucky.
CraveOnline: But as far as people accepting you on the big screen, did you always know that would work?
Eva Longoria: No I didn't. I didn't always know that it would work, but I find that the line between television and film has been blurred for many, many years already, with every film star trying to do TV, and every TV star doing film. I mean, way back when Jennifer Garner was doing Alias, it's been a while that people have been crossing over, so I never feared it. I didn't expect it, and I hoped that it would go well.
CraveOnline: You've been denying rumors of your pregnancy, but do you and Tony have plans to start a family anytime? Have you two talked about it at all?
Eva Longoria: Oh yeah. I mean, we're not really on a time clock, and going, "Okay, this month, this day." We're kind of just going, "We're so happy if we get pregnant, and if we don't we're okay." We're just letting God decide it, really.
CraveOnline: Desperate Housewives may be done for the season, but whether it comes back or not, do you think Gabby's really going to care that Carlos is blind?
Eva Longoria: That's what's interesting. I don't know how she is going to react. I would like to think that their love is really strong. Everybody's wanted and championed for them to get back together. Now they're back together and here's another obstacle, of course, that Marc Cherry has put in. I don't even know if he's going to stay blind. I don't know what Marc Cherry is going to do. I just read an article the other day, in USA Today, from Marc Cherry, saying that he thought that was the last episode of season four, and that was the first time that I had heard that, and I was like, "Noooo! Oh my God!" and that he would need at least two months to rework the next time that we come back, because he said the mystery is kind of screwed up now because of the strike, and so I think that he's going to change a lot of things.
CraveOnline: And when you do a scene where you ransack the garage at the funeral, how do you get into that? Is that just Gabby at this point?
Eva Longoria: That was a really hard scene. That day that I was doing the garage scene, was the day that we got picketed, the day that I handed out the pizzas, but that particular scene where I'm in the garage, there's picketers literally in front of me, which was weird, because Marc Cherry is on the negotiating committee, and we totally support the strike. You have to finish what was written, and it was like, we were shutting down the next day, so the fact that they picketed us was really odd, and it was really hard, because you felt torn. It was hard to shoot that scene because I was like, "I really don't think that we should be here, but I don't want to put these three hundred people that are here out of work two days earlier" because every paycheck counted knowing that we were going to be out of work for a while. That was a funny scene in the sense that she was like, "Crap! What do I do?" And you just go into my acting mode.
CraveOnline: It seemed like classic Gabby, in an episode that was otherwise really serious.
Eva Longoria: I didn't like that they aired that episode because the tornado one would have been a great cliffhanger to end on, if we were going to have a final episode, to not have the answers to who dies, and the fact that Carlos is blind. It answered a lot of the Tornado episode, and I wish they would have waited to air that one.
CraveOnline: And you just opened a new restaurant?
Eva Longoria: It opens in February, Beso. It's on Hollywood and Ivar. I don't know the address. I should know the address, but it's Hollywood and Ivar, and it's called Beso.
CraveOnline: Are you going to have a big opening party?
Eva Longoria: Actually, the premiere afterparty is at the restaurant.
CraveOnline: How involved will you be, and how often will you go there?
Eva Longoria: I will be making tableside Guacamole. I will be there Mondays, and Fridays bussing tables and making drinks. No, I was very involved, from the architectural design, the leases, of course the menu, the uniforms, the curtains, the tables, the chairs, the chair pads, the kitchen, the paintings, everything. When it comes to my business life, I'm very controlling, and I'm very involved, I like to really know every step of the way, to make decisions. When it comes to my personal life, I'm not controlling at all, I'm just kind of going with the flow.
CraveOnline: Do you have plans to open one in San Antonio if this one is successful?
Eva Longoria: I don't know, I'll have to wait and see how much work this one will be.
