E-mail a friendEva Longoria Parker
airdate February 7, 2008
After appearing in daytime soap operas, Eva Longoria Parker made the A-list with her role in ABC's Desperate Housewives. The Texas native's journey to Hollywood began when, after earning a degree in kinesiology, she entered a talent contest and was spotted by an agent. Longeria Parker made her professional theatrical debut in '03 and has appeared in several features, including the newly-released Over Her Dead Body. She also founded Eva's Heroes to help developmentally disadvantaged children.
Desperate Housewives star talks about having children. (:51)
Eva Longoria Parker
Tavis: Eva Longoria Parker is an award-winning actress who of course stars on the hit ABC series "Desperate Housewives." Fans of the show are certainly hoping that new episodes will be back on the air as soon as possible. Her latest project is the film "Over Her Dead Body." Thankfully not really her dead body. But the movie is now in theaters around the country. Here now, a scene from "Over Her Dead Body."
[Clip]
Tavis: (Laughter) All right, that clip gives some indication as to what this is about, but I'll let you describe what the story line is.
Eva Longoria Parker: Well, I play Kate, and she's a woman who dies on her wedding day and is not quite ready to move on, so she hangs around and haunts Paul Rudd, who plays her fiancé. And then he starts dating another woman, who happens to be a psychic and clairvoyant, and so Kate's not having it, so she spends the whole movie trying to sabotage this relationship. And of course the psychic can hear her and talk to her, and nobody else can.
Tavis: Yeah. I'm just trying to get a sense of when you filmed this relative to your wedding day.
Parker: Yeah, I know. I filmed it before I was engaged.
Tavis: Okay.
Parker: I filmed it two years ago, so yeah. I played a bridezilla in the movie, but not in real life.
Tavis: Yeah, because if you're psychic, or you believe in that kind of stuff, that would be like a bad omen, maybe. To do a movie like that when you're about to get married.
Parker: Right, right. Well, I made sure I didn't have ice sculptures (laughter) at my wedding that might fall on me.
Tavis: That's an inside joke. When you see the movie, you'll come to get that.
Parker: Yes.
Tavis: So how have you been staying busy these days, because as I said, so many fans are just waiting for you guys.
Parker: I know, I know. I've been home. I live in San Antonio with my husband.
Tavis: Who are you married to, by the way?
Parker: Tony Parker.
Tavis: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Parker: Yes. He's not a Pacer.
Tavis: No, he's not a Pacer.
Parker: He's a Spur.
Tavis: He's a great player, though.
Parker: He is a great player.
Tavis: He's great. Eva and I were talking earlier. I grew up in Indiana, and she was saying, "You must be a Pacer fan." I said, "Well, when I was growing up, that's all we had." We didn't have the Colts at the time. You're a Cowboys fan.
Parker: I'm a Cowboys fan.
Tavis: We'll come back to the Cowboys in a second.
Parker: Okay.
Tavis: First of all, back to being at home in San Antonio because you don't have work right now.
Parker: Yes, I've been home. Yeah, I've been on strike and so I've been home for three months, and it's actually been kind of nice. I've been working for about eight years straight with no stops, and so it's nice to finally relax.
Tavis: What are you hearing that you can whisper to me about this strike? Any good news?
Parker: Well, the SAG awards just happened and so I did talk to Marc Cherry. He said he's cautiously hopeful that we'll be back in about a month, depending on what happens. It's such an emotional strike, more than it's not good for the industry. But I totally support the writers and our union supports their union, and I agree that the current contract is very antiquated and it needs to be corrected and fixed. If you look at the Internet, it just killed the music industry, so we're just trying to prevent that. The writers are everything. They're the backbone of the industry.
Tavis: I wonder, with all due - obviously it's the right thing to say, it's the right position to take, and for some people it's the politically correct thing to say, "We support the writers." I wonder, though, whether or not when a show is on a roll like "Desperate Housewives" is, whether or not an interruption like this just really gets in the way? The timing, not very propitious when you're on a roll like this.
Parker: Right. Well, we're really lucky because we have an audience, it's our fourth year. It's the new shows that were just getting started, they just premiered, and you got to be wiped off. But the bigger danger is it changes the pattern of television as a whole. The last strike was when reality television was born, was because of the last strike.
And television has never recovered from that. And so a second strike kind of just adds to people changing their viewing patterns, changing from scripted programming to nonscripted programming, and that's the more dangerous thing. More so than my show, her show, his show. Just TV in general, the viewership is just down.
Tavis: This is our first time meeting, and obviously, since I've seen you interviewed a thousand and one times in a bunch of other places and read so much about your back story, you read enough about Eva Longoria, you know the background of growing up in Texas, in Corpus Christi and all that stuff. What's fascinating for me, though, is how dramatically - and this happens for anybody who becomes a star as big as you are - but how dramatically different your life is now than when you were growing up. Have you been able to properly contextualize that at this point?
Parker: (Laughs) Well, it's not that different. I still feed the chickens on the ranch. I still go swimming in the thing that the cows drink out of. It's so funny, my sisters - I always say my family keeps me grounded. My mom, my dad, my sisters, and my sisters always look at my life and they go, "Nothing's changed, we always had fun. We have it in better hotels now." (Laughter) Oprah says that, too. She's like, "Stay grounded. Just wear better shoes."
Tavis: You can certainly do that now.
Parker: Yeah. (Laughter)
Tavis: How do you process, though - I had somebody on the program - oh, there's a woman named Odetta who was a wonderful - 80 years old now, I think, a wonderful singer back in the civil rights era, and she and Bob Dylan have been friends for years. And I asked her the other night on this program about Bob Dylan, she gave a wonderful answer about Dylan.
Then I asked her how she processed not ever becoming as famous. She's well-regarded; not as famous as other singers of her day. Her answer, essentially, Eva, was that there are times you think, man, I wish, I wish, I wish. "But there are other times," she said, "when I look at all the stuff they have to endure, and I say I am so glad that I did not become a Bob Dylan because of all of the impositions that happen to your life."
Parker: And it's true, especially today, with the bounty of celebrity gossip.
Tavis: But you deal with it, though. You seem to get along. You seem to deal with it.
Parker: Yeah, you got to be tough-skinned. I was really lucky. I was 29, 30, when "Desperate Housewives" hit and fame really became a part of my life, so I felt I was really defined in who I was and I really had a solid grasp of what I represented as opposed to it happening a lot younger and everybody else telling you what you are and everybody else defining what you are.
But I find today it gets harder and harder because I feel like celebrity journalism has leaked into mainstream journalism. When you turn on CNN and the headline is Britney Spears got a latte or when they covered the Anna Nicole Smith story longer than the war, and particularly this year with it being election year, with the immigration reform issues that we've been having, and global warming, there's so many other things to be able to talk about.
And so for me it's a little irritating, and I get embarrassed that there is attention on me. Like I'm almost like "Nobody cares. Nobody cares about what kind of milk I buy."
Tavis: But you know they do, though.
Parker: Yeah, but why? You should care about the work I do outside of that. If you really want to know about me then you know the work that I do with charities or politics or whatever. Things that make the world better. What good does it do that you know I buy organic milk?
Tavis: But it is cool, though, when you find somebody at your level who knows how to navigate that, because a lot of people just can't take it, they explode, they throw stuff.
Parker: Yeah, but here's the thing: nobody wants to hear a celebrity complain, either, and I'm not complaining because it's because I'm a celebrity that I am able to do the work I do. Because I'm a celebrity, I'm able to bring a voice to the charity work that I do. Because I'm a celebrity, I'm able to give a voice to those who don't have a voice. So there's always the plus side, and there's way more pros than cons. But I do agree, I think fame is the only down side to being an actor, if you really care about the work.
Tavis: And your charity work centers basically around what issues?
Parker: Well, I'm the national spokesperson for PADRES Contra El Cancer, which is an organization -
Tavis: I'm glad you said it. (Laughter) I got the cancer part.
Parker: PADRES, they call it PADRES. And we help Latino families who have children with cancer in the Los Angeles area, particularly because the children's hospital here, 70 percent of the patients are Latinos. And it's a lot of preventable reasons.
Tavis: Right down the street from the studio.
Parker: Right here, yeah. Right down the street. And it's due to a lot of preventable measures. Language barrier is obviously the biggest reason, so we provide translators in hospitals; we fund those people that have to have a doctor background, a medical background. Social barriers - we're not a culture to go to the doctor early enough to catch it, and so usually children who have cancer, it's in late, late stages; there's not a lot to do.
Social barriers, obviously the economic barrier. We don't have insurance. There's so many that don't have jobs, who don't have insurance. So all of those things can be prevented if there's a right system in place. Obviously healthcare in the country needs to help everybody, but I feel like when you hear the numbers that we have the highest death rate amongst children - Latinos do - specifically in L.A., you need those angels from PADRES helping you along the way. It's an amazing organization, yeah.
Tavis: Let me shift gears just a little bit here, but first, before I shift in that regard, since you mentioned children - so how many times a week do you get asked the question I'm not going to ask?
Parker: (Laughs) A lot. I get asked it a lot.
Tavis: (Laughs) So, she's psychic, too.
Parker: I am psychic.
Tavis: She's got that psychic thing working.
Parker: I'm psychic. I was on the red carpet yesterday and they go, "So when are you going to have children? We want to know." And I said, "Well, do you know my ovulation schedule, because I don't know it." Like, I don't know when I'm going to have a baby, because I'm not really thinking - we're not really thinking about it. We both want a big family. We both don't have a date.
Tavis: How big is a big family?
Parker: Well we both would love the same amount of people that were in my family. I have three sisters; there's four of us. He comes from a family of three, and then my mom is eight.
Tavis: That's a big family.
Parker: Yeah, yeah. We're not going to do eight.
Tavis: Not going to do eight, okay. (Laughs)
Parker: Less than eight, I can tell you that.
Tavis: Something less than eight.
Parker: Less than eight.
Tavis: Every one of us who is blessed to be a part of this business who comes into contact with some modicum of success I think dreams about it before it happens. I think before I started doing what I'm doing now, I'm on my treadmill and I'm working out and I'm dreaming how I think this thing is going to work out for me. Is this the dream? Obviously, you couldn't predict "Desperate Housewives" as the show, but is it close to what you dreamed when you decided you wanted to do this acting thing?
Parker: Once I decided, yeah, absolutely. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to succeed. I moved here after college. I got my degree and I wanted to be a sports trainer, and my degree was in kinesiology and I wanted to go into sport injury, and literally overnight, I was "I'm going to be an actor" and I came to Hollywood. And the minute I decided that and I landed in Hollywood I was, like, okay, I took every class, every workshop, every meet-and-greet with casting directors. I really wanted to be on a soap. I thought if I could be on a soap opera, then I've arrived.
Tavis: Well, you kind of are.
Parker: (Laughs) Right, well, no, I meant like a daytime soap.
Tavis: Yeah, I know, I know.
Parker: Like, $9 a day. (Laughter) I was, like, woo. And so when that happened, then I was like oh, this is great, and I was on "The Young and The Restless" for three years, and then I said, "I want to be on a primetime show." And I did everything I could, whatever I needed to do to get on a primetime show, and then I got on "Dragnet," and then through "Dragnet" I stayed with ABC, and then they gave me the script of "Desperate Housewives" and said, "We really want you to read this."
And there you go. And then once I was on "Desperate Housewives" I said, "I really want to do a movie." And I think life is like that. You constantly - once one dream comes true, you just give yourself another dream. And then once that comes true, you just keep going. But I knew I would succeed somehow, just because I'm extremely ambitious when it comes to my career.
Tavis: Let's hope your success rubs off on these talks with the writers.
Parker: Oh, good.
Tavis: So we can get back to "Desperate Housewives," yeah.
Parker: Get me in the room. I'll solve it.
Tavis: Eva's volunteering to come in (laughter) to get "Desperate Housewives" back on the air with some original stuff. In the meantime, you can catch her in the movie "Over Her Dead Body." Nice to meet you.
Parker: Nice to meet you.
Tavis: I'm glad to have you come on.
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