Eva Longoria Brings Latino Life to the Screen

By Stephania Taladrid

As a child growing up on a ranch in South Texas, Eva Longoria seldom encountered her heroes onscreen. At home, they were ever present: her father, Enrique, an Army veteran, made the laborious task of tending the fields seem natural, while her mother, Ella, a special-education teacher, was uniquely skilled at maximizing the day—somehow managing to provide for her family, ferrying her four girls back and forth from their schools, and serving dinner at a set time. In class, Longoria learned and read about different kinds of American heroes, most of whom looked like the nation’s Founding Fathers, but bore no resemblance to her or her family. People like them rarely featured in monuments; their stories were almost always conveyed as a mere side note. This erasure, Longoria came to realize, painted an incomplete version of history—one that Hollywood could either promote or help redress.

When Longoria moved to Los Angeles, in the late nineties, she found that TV producers had a fixed idea of what Latinas should look and sound like. Longoria, whose family roots in Texas can be traced back to the seventeen-hundreds, was told that she didn’t have enough of a Spanish accent to be cast as Latina, but her skin wasn’t fair enough to pass for white. It wasn’t until “Desperate Housewives,” in 2004, that Longoria landed a leading role as a Latina, playing the former model Gaby Solis. The show, which ran for eight seasons and attracted millions of viewers, made Longoria a household name. It also led her to consider her next steps in television. What if she did more than deliver lines written by other people?

Around that time, Longoria enrolled in night classes at California State University, Northridge, where she earned a master’s in Chicano studies. If she was going to chart a path for her own people, she first needed to learn where they had come from. Works of history, such as “Occupied America,” by Rodolfo Acuña, allowed Longoria to contextualize the Mexican American experience and fully appreciate its trajectory. In front of and behind the screen, the gap between the community’s role and its representation continued to widen. Although Latinos had become the largest minority group in the country, they made up less than five per cent of hires as characters in film. It was clear to Longoria that producers and executives had unconsciously ignored the community for years; if she were to change that, she needed to join their ranks.

While “Desperate Housewives” was still airing, Longoria began to produce her own shows. As her repertoire grew—encompassing series, short films, and documentaries—she became a subject of scrutiny. When “Devious Maids” premièred, in 2013, critics questioned why Longoria, who produced the show and directed some of its episodes, had settled for an old trope. “The stereotype we are grappling with here is that as Latinas, all we are is maids,” she said, in response. “I take pride in the fact that these characters are not one-dimensional or limited to their job title.” Her body of work, which covered everything from child labor to reproductive justice, wouldn’t limit itself to a single theme, either.

Over time, Longoria understood that an “illusion of progress” pervaded Hollywood. The studios liked to tout themselves as advocates for diversity, but the numbers were telling a different story. Between 2007 and 2019, the U.S.C. Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that the percentage of Latinos onscreen did not change. Studios seemed mostly oblivious of the fact that Latinos represented more than a fourth of moviegoers in the country, bringing in millions of dollars each year. Series about and by Latinos were often the first to be called off. But, to Longoria, these were all reasons to press ahead, to cast a greater number of Latinos and defy long-standing prejudices. If Latinos could see themselves reflected onscreen—if other audiences were shown a different but truer narrative of the community—American culture would, at last, honor their life experience and role in society.

When a script of “Flamin’ Hot” landed on Longoria’s desk, she was moved to tears. In her hands was a story of love, prowess, and redemption which she had never once heard about yet could relate to. The plot was about a man named Richard Montañez, a former janitor at Frito-Lay, who, in the nineteen-nineties, pitches a simple idea to the ailing company he works for: with a little bit of spice, they could offer a product tailored for Latinos and tap into a long-ignored market. Longoria was less interested in Montañez’s claim that he was the mind behind Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, which the company disputes, than she was in the arc of his life. Here was a man who had gone from hustling in the streets of East Los Angeles to reaching the highest ranks at Frito-Lay—a man whose story proved that opportunities were attainable, even though they weren’t always equally distributed.

Searchlight Pictures had already set its eyes on the story, so Longoria had to convince them that she was the best person who could tell it. Once she got the director’s job, she began building her own pipeline of talent. She wanted to hire Federico Cantini, an Argentinean cinematographer who had developed a reputation working on shorts. When Searchlight argued that Cantini had never made a movie the size of “Flamin’ Hot,” Longoria countered that neither had she. Together, they would overcome a problem Longoria viewed as circular: “You can’t get the job if you don’t have the body of work, but you can’t get the body of work without the job.” Almost everyone involved in bringing Montañez’s story to life was Latino—the project felt intimate enough that the designers overseeing the production used their own family albums as references.

The result is a film with an uncompromising sense of purpose. One that enables viewers not only to see themselves in Montañez but to rethink their understanding of the possible. The dialogue’s rhythm—its irresistible wit and Mexican candor—brings the spirit of the Latino community alive. In Jesse Garcia and Annie Gonzalez, who play the Montañezes, viewers will recognize the singular pride, warmth, and resolve with which Latinos carry themselves in this country, leaving a long-lasting mark behind.

While Longoria was promoting the film in Cannes, we talked about her role as a director and a preëminent voice in Hollywood today. The first episode of “Searching for Mexico,” her new CNN series, aired in March, just days after “Flamin’ Hot,” which is now available for streaming, premièred at South by Southwest. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I want to start with a question about identity, which is a theme in both “Flamin’ Hot” and “Searching for Mexico.” You grew up on a ranch near Corpus Christi, and your ancestors settled in Texas centuries ago, when it still belonged to Mexico. Today, you identify as a hundred-per-cent Mexican and a hundred-per-cent American. Have you always felt this way?

No, I always felt Texan. And, growing up in South Texas, there’s such a huge Hispanic community, so I always thought we were all Hispanic. And it wasn’t until I went to a gifted-and-talented school that was not in my neighborhood that I heard somebody call me a Mexican. And I was, like, “What’s that?” And I remember getting on a bus, I had a bean taco because that’s what I ate every day—I still eat that every day for breakfast—and everybody on the bus had a Pop-Tart. And I was, like, “Oh, my God, what is that?” And they were, like, “What is that?” And I was, like, “A bean taco!” Then I remember somebody on the bus going, “She’s Mexican.” And I was, like, “What’s that?” I had no idea because I was eight, nine years old, so my whole life I just assumed everybody ate menudo and everybody listened to mariachi.

Then, later in life—I didn’t grow up speaking Spanish—going to Mexico and all of them going, “Oh, you’re the American,” “Mira la gringa,” “Ahí está la gringa.” And I was, like, “No, I’m Mexican.” And they’re, like, “No, you’re not. You’re American.” And I was, like, “I mean, yes, but.” And, all of a sudden, I was, like, “Wait, oh, so I’m both,” and it wasn’t really until college that I navigated that identity, straddling the hyphen of being both.

After the bus incident, in third grade, you went back home and you told your mom, “I want a Pop-Tart.” What was her reaction? Especially considering that she intentionally made the decision not to raise you and your siblings speaking Spanish?

My parents spoke Spanish to each other, but they were told by the school, by society, by the community, “Do not teach them Spanish. They need to be English-only.” And so she was really terrified to speak to us in Spanish because she didn’t want us to experience any sort of injustice because we had an accent or because we spoke a different language. It was an era in which a whole generation of us didn’t speak Spanish.

I remember going home and begging my mom to buy Pop-Tarts. I was, like, “Please!” And she was, like, “I am not buying you Pop-Tarts. That is not happening.” Even though they chose not to teach us Spanish, my parents gave me immense pride and lessons in our culture, in our history, in our genealogy.

Totally, it was a process of assimilation. And I wonder what was it about your college experience that made you feel more comfortable with that hyphen, that dual identity of yours?

Well, you start to find your tribe outside of high school. College is for critiquing what you’ve been taught, critiquing what you’ve been told, questioning the truth, creating your own philosophies about life. And so I think it was taking history classes—I remember reading “Occupied America,” by Dr. Acuña, and I was, like, Oh, my God, wait a minute, so the Alamo happened a different way? And then I met other proud Mexican Americans, proud Chicanos, proud Tejanos, who were, like, “Yeah, we’re both. Viva la raza.”

In “Searching for Mexico,” you’re basically following in the footsteps of Stanley Tucci’s “Searching for Italy.” It’s an exploration of identity, and it’s also so much more than that. What did this search mean to you on a personal level?

Stanley called me, and they wanted to do a spinoff for “Searching,” and I offered up the idea of Mexico. I was, like, “Do you know the jewel of what Mexican cuisine is? It’s protected by UNESCO as a cultural treasure, because you can trace it back to the roots of the country and its origins.” There’s so many ingredients that are endemic to Mexico: chocolate, vanilla, the tomato, the chile.

U.S. relations with Mexico have been so tense during the past Administration, I wanted to show the beauty of the country and the people, because, when you’re talking about the food of a country, you’re talking about its history—the history is embedded in the food. Through colonization, you see how the Mexican diet changed and how dairy came in; there was no cow, there was no pig, before the Spaniards came. And, so, you see the conquest change the diet of the country, and then you see the Indigenous footholds in corn, in chile, in chocolate, in mole, you see endemic Indigenous ingredients, still surviving and not conforming to colonialism.

And the timing, as you said, was absolutely key, given the political context. There’s a very clear intention in the series to demystify Mexico for an American audience. And it goes beyond that, because you’re inviting the viewer into spaces where they’ve never been, introducing them to people they’ve never met, and, in that process, one’s conception of Mexico is transformed. I wonder, specifically, what were some of the notions that you wanted to challenge?

That Mexico is not just tacos and tequila. The same people that are saying “Taco Tuesday!” are the same people that are saying “Build that wall, build that wall!” I want you to connect the dots: Taco Tuesday is a beautiful thing, because it comes from a beautiful country made by, invented by, beautiful people.

Right. And you’ve said in the past that there wasn’t an episode when you didn’t cry.

Oh, my God, the stories. There was a woman in Mexico City who gets on a bus three hours one way, and three hours another way, every day, to sell her tlacoyos. That’s dedication. And she’s happy—it gives her such joy.

And passion.

Yeah, it’s her passion. She’s, like, “My mom did this, and now I’m doing this.” In Jalisco, when we were with the charros and they’re, like, tough, and they’re on a rodeo, and they’re on a horse, and they’re doing all of this macho stuff, and then we sit to eat and they start reading poetry from Zapata. And I asked one of them, “What do you want the world to know about Mexico?” And he said, “That we matter.” And that just stabbed me—we’re so much more than what people think, and we want the world to see us for who we are, which is valuable.

Absolutely. And, talking about stories that matter, let’s turn to “Flamin’ Hot,” which is the story of Richard Montañez. Tell me what drew you to his life.

My agent sent me the script, and I read it and I was, like, “He’s Mexican American? I’m Mexican American! How do I not know the story? Everybody should know the story—it’s an amazing story!” So I thought he looked like a hero in a corporate American environment where you don’t usually see brown people. And so I was, like, “Oh, gosh, this is a story we should all know. And this is a story I have to tell.” And then I fought to get the job to direct it. My agent was, like, “You’ll never get this, but you should try because I think it’s right up your alley.” And it was, it was! I knew this community. I knew who Richard was. I am Richard Montañez. I’ve been doubted and told, “That job is not for you,” “Ideas don’t come from people who look like you,” “Women like you shouldn’t be doing that job.” And he had the audacity to ask, “But why not? Why not me?”

And I love that his naïveté is what led him to challenge those notions and those barriers.

Yeah, and I think that innovation happens when you disrupt a system, an archaic system, in any industry. For Richard, he had an idea, and he didn’t understand the protocol. And he kept saying, “Well, why can’t I just call the C.E.O. myself and tell him my idea?” That naïveté was his superpower.

Tell me what it was like to meet Richard. When you started thinking about how you would conceive the story and develop it, what were those conversations with him like?

He was very fascinating. He had written two books, and once I went down the Richard rabbit hole of speeches I was, like, “God, he’s so funny, and he’s witty. He’s super smart, but he’s not educated. And I love that voice.” His tone was so specific. And so I immediately said the script has to be in his point of view, everything’s going to be voice-over, it’s going to be very Scorsese, very Adam McKay. I wanted it in his perspective, because it’s his story.

I believe the last Latina-directed studio film came out in the early two-thousands, so, two decades ago.

Was it? And who was it? Was it “Chasing Papi”?

I think so!

I think you’re right because that’s the last one: Linda Mendoza. But, before that, Patricia Cardoso did “Real Women Have Curves,” but that was an indie.

I mean, still twenty years ago. . . . So, what was it like to pitch this production to Searchlight?

I was really lucky—this was set up by Searchlight. I was the director for hire. So, they already believed in the story. They were kind of waiting for a vision. And they had interviewed a lot of directors. And so that’s why my agent was, like, “Everybody’s going up for this. You probably won’t get it because there’s a lot of filmmakers already interested in it.” I’ve been directing for twelve years, but I hadn’t directed a movie. I did my pitch, which I worked on for, like, three months—I mean, it was very specific. I remember finishing the film, and Searchlight said, “Wow, I can’t believe the movie you made is the movie you pitched us.” That rarely happens.

Given there was such a big pool of filmmakers who were interested in making this film, how did you, as Eva Longoria, pitch yourself to be the filmmaker?

It’s funny, because that is usually the barrier we face as women, as Latinas, as people of color: you can’t get the job if you don’t have the body of work, but you can’t get the body of work without the job. And you’re, like, “I know I can do it. I just haven’t done it.” But, in my directing career, I really have touched every rung of the ladder. I started with short film, and then I did half-hour episodic, and I did one-hour episodic, and I did single-cam, and I did multi-cam, and I did comedy, and I did drama, and then I did pilots, and then I did bigger pilots, and [a feature film] was the next natural step. So, if you looked at my directing résumé, you would feel confident that I know how to run a set, but filmmaking is so different in the sense that it is truly your vision. In TV, I’m so used to the showrunner telling me exactly how they want it, so used to networks and studios giving me the notes, telling me what shots to do. Once I was on set [for “Flamin’ Hot”], the crew would ask me questions and I was, like, “We should ask somebody about that.” And they were, like, “No, we’re asking you.”

And how did that feel?

It was super empowering and scary at the same time. I think you can’t expand and grow unless you’re in awkward situations, unless you’re in situations that scare you. I was prepared for it. I was, like, Oh, I’m so nervous about making the right decision. But I was confident in my vision. And so it was this balance, every day, this heartbeat in my throat, and a little bit of faking it till you make it.

Also, surrounding myself with amazing collaborators—that’s the smartest thing I ever do, is hire smarter people than me. We built this factory. We built all these machines, and then you see the movie you’re, like, “Oh, my God. Did you guys find a Frito factory?”

That’s what I thought!

We built every single machine. There were Cheetos all over the place. It was crazy. Even when Richard came to set, he’s, like, “I can’t believe how correct and accurate this is. You have a tumbler, you have the extruder.” I was, like, “Yeah,” because I had studied it so much: the masa goes through the extruder and the extruder shoots it out. Then it’s fried, then it’s coated, then it’s bagged, and then it’s weighed, and then it’s boxed. If you see factories today, they’re all mechanical. There’s no people. But, back in the eighties and nineties, when this movie takes place, everything was by hand, so it was a very bustling place. When we went to visit the actual Frito-Lay factory, it was so quiet, it was all robots.

You’ve talked about the fact that, going into this film, and throughout the production, you felt the weight of your community—the Latino community. Translate that feeling into words for me.

Gosh, I always feel this because I’ve made so many TV shows about Latino characters, about us and by us, and I’ve seen them fail and then the network getting reluctant to do it again. Because then they make a generalization and an assumption: “Well, we tried the Latin soap, and it didn’t work, so let’s not do it again.” “We tried that Latin comedy, and it didn’t work.” We don’t get that many bites at the apple, we don’t get many opportunities. And so we don’t have an opportunity to fail or to learn or to better ourselves, and so I felt, Oh, my gosh, I got this chance. I have to get it right. I have to get it. This has got to be good. And it’s funny because Fede, the director of photography, felt the same way. And Jesse and Annie [the lead actors] felt the same way. It was amazing, the collective weight that we all took on without speaking about it but knowing. They didn’t want to fuck it up, either.

Everything had to be right. Everything. Tonally, casting, music, even when we did the gangbanger cholo stuff, it was done with such care and love and complexity. And, when I cast those roles, these guys were cholos from East L.A. I was, like, “I don’t want some actor wearing a bandana doing a bad accent.” They have to be from the community. Fabian Alomar, Bobby Soto, those guys grew up in L.A. Annie is from East L.A. So, I remember being on set, and Fabian fixing one of the extra’s bandanas, and he was, like, “Nah, man, don’t hold it like that.” He took such care and attention to make sure that we were authentic, and I loved that. We all were, like, “Gotta get it right.” Even somebody like Fabian who’s, like, “No, his pants are pulled up. You don’t roll them up twice. You roll them up once.” And what it meant if you did it a different way. So, I wanted to make sure we weren’t doing caricatures of cholos; we were actually telling these complex stories of survival.

That point about complexity is so key because, when you’re a Latino storyteller, it’s always very difficult to strike the balance between finding the universal themes, which we’ve already talked about—family, food, community, everything that unites us—while, at the same time, showing just how complex the community is and its nuances, as you said. How did you strike that balance? Perhaps thinking in hindsight about the failures that you referred to, the telenovelas that did not succeed, how are you thinking about conveying stories that show how universal these themes are, while finding the stories that will resonate with Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, all while, at the same time, showing just how diverse and beautifully complex the community is?

Well, I think the trick is telling a very specific story and having specificity in the broadest way possible.

Easier said than done!

Very much so, but Latino stories are American stories, and American stories are Latino stories. If you look at political issues that we care about in the United States, it’s the economy, it’s education, it’s how do we put food on the table—

It’s health care.

Right, it’s health care. People assume it’s immigration—No. 1 issue. It’s not. We care about the economy. We care about jobs, we care about job creation, we are the job creators. We’re among the fastest-growing small-business owners in the United States. Latinas are six times likelier than the national average to create small businesses. Again, if you talk about Latino history, you’re talking about American history. And, when you talk about the future of the Hispanic market, especially with moviegoers, we are the largest ethnic group of ticket buyers. You will not have a hit if you don’t have the Latino audience, and we show up for everything from “Fast & Furious” to “Top Gun”—we want to be entertained, we want a good story. We’re demanding more out of content creators and distributors. And hopefully the industry is paying attention. Because we’re living in a global society now. And the streamers and everybody have pushed the industry into globally appealing shows. If you look at “Squid Game,” if you look at “Casa de Papel,” if you look at “Dix Pour Cent,” these are top shows across these platforms, and they’re in different languages: one’s in Korean, one’s in Spanish, one’s in French. So, language no longer being a barrier, I think we’re rethinking how we can tell different stories. And, hopefully, the Hispanic community can benefit from that disruption and innovation.

I’ve got to say, one of my favorite parts in the movie is when you get to the credits, and you see all the Latino names, after having just witnessed what they can achieve and what they have achieved. And yet, as you said, we still make up a very small percentage of the film and TV industry. I believe it’s five per cent or so.

It used to be seven, and now it’s five.

To your point about us making up nearly thirty per cent of ticket buyers at the box office, how do you successfully educate the gatekeepers of the industry and show the might of the community?

I think some of that responsibility falls on the Hispanic audience. If we don’t show up to things that are made by us, then the gatekeepers don’t see an economic benefit to continue making them. So, we, as the community, and as the audience, have to show up and support those projects and shows and creators and stars first and foremost.

I think it’s not about persuading the gatekeepers to tell our stories; it’s about changing those gatekeepers to people of color. I remember pitching La Llorona ten years ago. First, nobody could say it in the room, and then there was one Mexican American junior exec and he’s, like, “Oh, my God, I was terrified of La Llorona when I was young.” He was the only one who understood it. And so, again, I don’t think studios consciously avoid hiring women and people of color. I think they unconsciously hire who they always work with, and they’ve always worked with the same people. What we have to do is get them to think a different way, get them to tap into a different talent pool in front of and behind the camera. The assumption is that, because you have to do a diversity hire or a female hire, you’re compromising the talent. And you’re not—we’re equally as talented. My movie wasn’t compromised because I hired all Latino department heads. It was actually necessary to tell this story that these department heads came from the community of the story we were telling.

And that’s how you build the pipeline of talent that you so often talk about.

Yeah, we have to start building that pipeline of talent. We have the talent, we have to get them the opportunity. And so it’s bridging that gap between prepared talent and opportunities, and introducing studios to a different talent pool.

Lastly, I want to ask you about another anecdote of yours that I love, which involves Dolores Huerta, who is, of course, a hero and a role model for so many of us. Early on in your career, she told you, “One day you’re going to have a voice, and you’d better have something to say.” What is that something today for you?

What am I saying today? Oh, God, I think that our stories matter. I love that I got to define what a hero looks like in a movie. He looks like my dad. He looks like my tío. He looks like every man I grew up with in my neighborhood. To say, “Our stories matter. We matter.” We have amazing stories, and we’re amazing storytellers. That’s the flag I’m carrying right now: look over here, we have so much to say, and it’s entertaining and it’s inspirational. And it’s thematically universally global. I think people will all relate to Richard’s journey and be inspired by it. I wanted to make a film that made people feel good but also, specifically, one that made my community feel good. That they could see what they could be in Richard. You leave this going, “Wow, I can’t believe it. If he did that, then I can rule the world.” ♦