Eva Longoria is not interested in easy. This is a woman, after all, who earned her masters degree in Chicano studies while on the set of “Desperate Housewives,” the series that made her a star. Since then, she’s wielded that stardom in wide-ranging ways to make a variety of projects happen — including her return to TV, Apple TV+’s “Land of Women.”
Set in the Catalan wine region, “Land of Women” stars Longoria as Gala, the wife of a shady businessman who must flee thugs in Manhattan with her daughter (Victoria Bazúa) and her mother (the great Carmen Maura) to start over in her mother’s hometown. The premise is fish-out-of-water, but you hardly realize it’s anything that ordinary given the specificity and nuance that Longoria and the whole team bring to the six episodes. Family secrets are uncovered, generational bonding ensues, a flirtation strikes up — and we learn more about winemaking than you’d expect from a dramedy.
“I felt like TV is so stressful,” Longoria told IndieWire. “It’s like the end of the world and the apocalypse. And then what happens if we get cyberattacked? And you’re like, this is all too real. Can we just slow down a little bit? I wanted to use the characters to escape and really shoot somewhere that was blue skies and people would go, ‘Ooh, I want to go there.’”
But just because the series is escapist for the audience doesn’t mean it was for Longoria. Though she doesn’t direct any of the episodes, she more than had her hands full. “I like to direct, produce, and act what I am in because I like to have control,” she said, but the logistics of doing so on location in Spanish while also acting in Spanish for the first time proved to be too daunting. “But definitely a heavy hand in producing,” Longoria said. “I was like, ‘I want “Under the Tuscan Sun,” but she cannot be saved by a man.’ That was my main thing: Yeah, there’s a meet-cute, yeah, there’s a guy in there, but movies and television are always like, ‘If she just found love, all would be better in the world. And I really wanted her to be the hero of her own story. And that is something I had a very heavy hand with with Ramón [Campos] our writer, the series creator.”
About that whole acting-in-a-second-language thing. Not only does Longoria tackle that challenge with aplomb, but she does so opposite Maura, one of the icons of Spanish cinema. (And seeing the star of “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” casually drop how great her gazpacho is becomes a series highlight.)
“I literally was like, ‘I’m gonna go back to TV. You know what, I’m gonna act in Spanish. Not only that, I’m gonna go to Spain.’ And then when I landed, I was like, ‘Oh my god,’” Longoria said with a laugh. “I had a Castellano Spanish coach because the Spanish was totally different than what I knew. And then a comedy, so the timing was different. And then put Carmen Maura in front of me? And why did I want to do this? In truth, I really almost had a panic attack. I didn’t really think it through, and thank god!”
Instead, Longoria turned any perceived weaknesses into strengths, mining her uncertainty with the language for laughs and nailing the physical comedy with the precision of a sniper. The show initially didn’t have much slapstick in it — until a lighting test involving Longoria picking her way through a vineyard with a roller bag showed everyone the possibilities of letting Gala be Gala in her new environment.
“I’m not even trying, it is so real to the situation,” Longoria said. “And that’s what makes it funny. We’re walking in the rain. It’s literally pouring rain. And I’m in high heels because that’s all I brought. It’s so much more grounded whenever you play the reality of it.”
And though picking her way through a vineyard in heels might sound an awful lot like a Wisteria Lane resident mowing her lawn in an evening gown, Longoria points out a key distinction between Gala and her “Desperate Housewives” character Gabby. “Gabby was so resourceful and confident in what she wanted and who she wanted and how she was going to get it,” Longoria said. “And Gala, she’s never been in this situation. She’s never been in this position. She’s more, ‘I have to do what?!’”
Sounds a lot like Longoria herself — especially when both rise to the occasion.
“Land of Women” is now streaming its entire first season on Apple TV+.
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