EvalutionBy Amy ElisA KEith PhotogrAPhs By Justin stEPhEns

As A cochAir of PrEsidEnt

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month tk 2011 LAtInA .Com 2

EvalutionBy Amy ElisA KEith PhotogrAPhs By Justin stEPhEns

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92 LATINA .COM NOveMber 2012

resh off a flight from Miami and gearing up for a trip to Spain, an ever-polished Eva Longoria tucks into a patio table at Holly-wood’s Chateau Mar-mont for yet another

busy day of work. With back-to-back meetings, she settles in for her first appointment of the day, her Latina inter-view, and sets up her “mobile office,” con-sisting of iPad, iPhone and Blackberry. After checking a few e-mails and order-ing a cup of Earl Grey tea, she sighs. “It’s so funny, because I thought that after Desperate Housewives I’d slow down.”

But the days of afternoon yoga classes and shopping will have to wait, because President Barack Obama is calling. Well, it’s more like his campaign. “I used to use the show as my excuse, like, ‘I can’t do that, can’t make that event, I’ve got the show,’ ” says the 37-year-old tejana. However, as a cochair for the president’s reelection campaign, she is setting aside the excuses (and a much-needed vaca-tion) to take on new challenges with an “all-consuming” schedule of conferences, stump speeches and fund-raisers.

“When they asked me to officially be a cochair, it was not just to put my face on something,” quips Longoria. “My mis-sion is to educate the public on Obama’s record, specifically with two communities that pertain to me: women and Latinos.”

In truth, Longoria is certainly not one to shy away from a challenge. In addition to enfranchising voters, these days the star is also focused on providing content for and by Latinos with her production company, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment. “It’s a great position to be in,” Longoria says of transitioning from acting to exec-utive-producing two anticipated TV shows, NBC’s Ready for Love and Lifetime’s Devious Maids. “I want to be the go-to person for amazing projects.”

Longoria’s new career direction is a can’t-pass-up opportunity to tackle meat-ier issues and make history. She adds, “I want to have a platform that will allow women to grow and attain their fullest

potential in life, whether you’re a dentist, a lawyer or an actor.”

Just as she is about to plunge into another election topic, Longoria spots actor and friend George Lopez in a cor-ner. Playground-style, she yells out, “George!” She giggles in embarrassment as the entire patio now eyes their reunion. Wrapping her arms around him like a lit-tle sister, Longoria pokes her head out, smiling. Laughter and small talk ensue before Longoria sits down and dives right back in. “Honestly, the main thing about this election is that it’s going to be a very clear choice.”

From Planned Parenthood to immi-gration reform, Longoria is passionate about dispelling the myths surrounding the president’s policies, and says the nation’s minorities are getting the mes-sage. “Latinos are waking up and going, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I may have had this view on this particular social issue, but if I vote for this candidate my son can’t go

to college on a Pell Grant,’ ” she says. “We have to have a bit more common

sense about what we want our country to look like,” she adds matter-of-factly.

A few weeks after her Latina inter-view, Longoria took that message to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Her story of perseverance and triumph instantly connected with the DNC crowd.

“In my family, there was one cardinal priority—education,” Longoria said in her speech. “College was not an option; it was mandatory. So even though we didn’t have a lot of money, we made it work. I signed up for financial aid, Pell Grants, work study, anything I could. And just like our president and first lady, I took out loans to pay for school. I changed oil in a mechanic’s shop, I flipped burgers at Wendy’s, I taught aer-obics and I worked on campus to pay those loans back.”

Never skipping a beat, Longoria makes multitasking look effortless. And that is certainly coming in handy as an executive producer for her new dating show on NBC, Ready for Love, which debuts this winter.

What Longoria describes as an “authentic, noncheesy” version of ABC’s The Bachelor, Ready for Love brings the science of matchmaking to the typical dating show for what she calls a “mod-ern approach to finding a soul mate.” She personally interviewed hundreds of men to find three who were actually “ready for love.” Her criteria? Plain old intuition. “I’m a woman,” Longoria says, gesturing with her teal-painted finger-nails. “I can tell if they want to find their soul mate or if they are just looking for stardom.”

Instead of the typical scenario in which a random hot guy steps out of a limo to dozens of just-as-random screaming women, Longoria’s reality show taps pro-fessional matchmakers to find suitable mates for each of the three bachelors: Ben Patton, a financier from Dallas; Tim Lopez, a musician from Santa Barbara, Calif.; and Ernesto Arguello, a philan-thropist from Miami.

f “As an actor, you say your lines and hope that it turns out well. Now I’m in charge.”

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Previous sPread:

Dress, Hugo Boss Black.

Shoes, Jimmy Choo.

THis page: Top, Hugo Boss Red.

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While the single Longoria didn’t find love for herself on the show (“I don’t need help in that arena,” she says with a laugh), she did glean a few dating tips for the future. “The matchmakers’ thing is to get out of your own way,” says the actress, who split with boyfriend Eduardo Cruz, brother to Penélope, in June and has since confirmed dating New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. “That’s good advice.”

These days, however, the showrunner is more likely to be found in the editing room than canoodling on a romantic date. “As an [executive producer], I’m definitely a control freak with the final product,” she admits, having wrapped Love the day before our interview. “I’m involved in music, editing, everything top to bottom.”

Longoria says her new executive role is a welcome change from her days on Desperate Housewives, which ended its eight-year run in May. “As an actor, you say your lines and hope that it turns out well. Now I’m in charge. I’m an under-budget kind of [producer], too,” she laughs. “I’m always thinking of how to do something cheaper—I’m Mexican!”

That combination of business acumen and cultural pride also catapulted her to be an executive producer alongside Housewives creator Marc Cherry for their new show, Devious Maids, which pre-mieres on Lifetime in 2013.

“She came to Desperate Housewives as an unemployed actress and she left a star who was very aware of her position in the entertainment industry,” says Cherry. He jokingly adds, “She’ll probably end up being better than me.”

Set amongst the champagne wishes and caviar dreams of Beverly Hills, the cable show—which moved from ABC to Lifetime due to what Cherry describes as scheduling conflicts—follows the hilarious experiences of five domestic workers played by Judy Reyes, Dania Ramirez, Roselyn Sanchez, Ana Ortiz and Edy Ganem.

While Longoria says Cherry initially expressed concern about a possible back-lash to portraying Latinas in stereotypi-cal roles, his coexec stepped up with her usual confidence. “I told him that if you’re saying that, [then] you’re telling me that maids’ and domestic workers’ stories aren’t worth being told; that they’re less human. That they don’t have any story to tell. That’s absurd,” she says defiantly.

Wearing multiple hats in show busi-ness is nothing new. Yet even though Longoria looks to a fellow minority mogul (Oprah Winfrey) as her role model, she’s thinking bigger than a talk show or a magazine to capture the audience of over 50 million Latinos in the U.S. “I’m trying to break the mold.”

She’s already broken records by top-ping Forbes’s list as the highest-paid TV actress in 2011 (she tied with Tina Fey). And she’s happy to take third place this year, passing the lofty crown to Sofia Vergara. “The fact that for two years in a row we’ve had Latinas as the highest-paid actresses—that’s not too shabby.”

But it’s not the money or even the big-budget projects that feed Longoria’s desire for media domination. Sure, designer suits and a killer pair of stilettos help, but being smarter than the next guy is what makes her feel in charge.

“Education makes me feel powerful,” she says. “Saber es poder. It’s a true cliché.”

And she fits the cliché into her own life, whether that means pursuing a mas-ter’s degree in Chicano studies (at Cal State Northridge; she expects to finish next year) or writing her thesis on educa-tion. Armed with facts, Longoria revels in explaining the history of U.S. immigration to political satirist/TV host Bill Maher and holding her own alongside Vice President Joe Biden at public appearances.

“As an actor there’s a stereotype that we can’t be smart, we can’t be political, we can’t be civic minded or engaged. We just have to stay in front of the camera and look pretty,” says Longoria. “No. I’m human. I can do more.”

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3 Rising Latina PoLiticaL staRsYoung male Latino leaders like Marco Rubio and Julián Castro have received lots of attention in recent months. But there are plenty of mujeres to keep your eye on in the political realm. Here are three.

Mary GonzálezThe Democrat, 28, will be the country’s first self-identified pansexual legislator when she’s elected this month (she won her party’s primary in May and has no Republican opponent on the ballot). González asserts that gender identity does not play a role in whom she is attracted to—and she’s taking that and her fight for the rights of LGBT people and other minorities to a staunchly conservative place: the Texas House of Representatives.

Bettina inclánThe 32-year-old Mexican and Cuban Florida native is the Republican National Committee’s director of Hispanic outreach. Inclán has been called “the woman with the single toughest job in the Republican Party” because of the GOP’s difficulties attracting Latino voters. Inclán, who has worked on several high-profile campaigns, also hosted a radio show on the Cristina channel on SiriusXM and is poised, post-election, to become a sought-after political analyst.

GaBy PachecoThe 27-year-old from Ecuador, who holds three degrees from Miami Dade College, declared her undocumented status publicly in 2006, and entered the national scene in January 2010 when she, along with three other undocumented students from Miami, walked 1,500 miles to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness for the DREAM Act, which failed to come to a vote in the Senate later that year. Currently, Pacheco is the political director for United We Dream, a network of youth-led immigrant organizations across the country.

—Adriana Maestas

Bodysuit, American Apparel. Skirt, Juicy Couture. Shoes, Jimmy Choo.

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