20Q: Eva Longoria

Q1

[Q] Playboy: You've become famous playing a red-hot two-timing vixen who can scam her way out of anything on Desperate Housewives. Offscreen, how intense is your inner bitch?

[A] Longoria: Well, I am Latina, so automatically I have a feistiness most other people don't. When we made The Sentinel, Kiefer Sutherland called me a firefly crossed with a mosquito---bright but, look out, I could bite. When I have lines on Desperate Housewives like "I don't care if she shot triplets out of her ass---we're not having her as a surrogate," I become my character, Gabrielle, even though we're so unalike. I think I'm a tamed tiger.

Q2

[Q] Playboy: Your co-star Teri Hatcher is now reportedly TV's highest-paid actress. What are you doing with your new-found fortune?

[A] Longoria: Never in the history of television has a show done so well this fast. Our show is where most shows would be in their fifth or sixth year, which was when the stars of Friends started making $1 million an episode. I'm still really frugal, which is funny. The other day I got upset because every zipper was broken in a box of Ziploc bags I was using. My assistant said, "Let's just go buy another box," but I insisted, "No, they're supposed to zip, okay?" I called the number on the package and they sent me five free boxes. I felt better. It's the principle of the matter.

Q3

[Q] Playboy: You played another scheming bombshell on The Young and the Restless. Why are you the actress everyone loves to hate?

[A] Longoria: I hope it's because I can play someone with no moral boundaries who does what she wants when she wants. It's always much more fun for an actor to play the villain. People genuinely love Gabrielle on Desperate Housewives for being a good person with good intentions who does bad things. But I was bad to the bone on The Young and the Restless.

Q4

[Q] Playboy: Which two characters on Desperate Housewives ought to have a lesbian fling?

[A] Longoria: Definitely Nicollette Sheridan, who is a ball of fun, and Marcia Cross, who I think is stunning. My character would go for Nicollette too because Gabrielle is another ball of fun. They'd be a pair to reckon with. They would cause quite a ruckus.

Q5

[Q] Playboy: Your new movie, Harsh Times, set in south L.A., is all about guns, drugs and crime. You play a lawyer-to-be who hooks up with a druggie screwup played by Freddy Rodriguez. Are there any real-life parallels?

[A] Longoria: I used to have an asshole for a boyfriend, although he wasn't like Freddy's character, who I believe loves my character but doesn't have his shit together. I had a pretty evil person in my life. All my friends were going, "Run!" and I was like, "But I love him." Everybody has to experience one toxic relationship, and thank God I got mine out of the way. I'm attracted to driven, hardworking, humorous people, but the guys in the movie are either pretty serious or stoned.

Q6

[Q] Playboy: What's it like to be a favorite target of the paparazzi?

[A] Longoria: It's like being in a fishbowl. The (continued on page 138) Eva Longoria(continued from page 109) fish aren't doing anything but swimming along in their own merry way, yet people can't help but watch. If Brad and Angelina are in town, that's lucky for all of us because then there's a diversion, like the day Britney Spears had her baby. That was also a good day for me. Earlier this year something fell on the Desperate Housewives set and I got a concussion, but I never lost consciousness and was home from the hospital within an hour. By the time I got home there must have been 40 paparazzi outside my house. My girlfriends came over to take care of me, and while we were watching Oprah, the show was interrupted by "Breaking news: Eva Longoria almost fatally injured."

Q7

[Q] Playboy: Have you gotten used to all the attention?

[A] Longoria: I'll be at a basketball game, scarfing down nachos and hot dogs, and of course there will be all these photos of me with my mouth wide open and a nacho halfway in. It's all very weird. I think if I ever get used to that stuff, something's not right with me.

Q8

[Q] Playboy: At what point do guys' stares turn into leers?

[A] Longoria: I don't think a guy seriously noticed me until late in high school, so I never noticed men staring at me in the past, much less now. When my closest friends go, "That guy just won't stop looking at you," I'm always like, "What guy? Does he know me?" And they'll say, "Duh, yeah, he knows you." I always forget I'm on a TV show. I was shooting something at a studio, and when we pulled up, all these photographers were waiting outside. I said to my friends, "Oh my God, you guys, who's here?" And they said, "You are." And I said, "Oh, I thought a big star was here."

Q9

[Q] Playboy: Your boyfriend is San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker. How does an NBA star woo a successful actress?

[A] Longoria: Tony did it correctly. I took my dad to a Spurs game, and the team asked if we wanted to meet the players afterward, because they would love to meet me. I said no, but my dad said yes. So we took my dad back to the locker room, met all the players and took pictures with them. Tony was the last one I met. He invited my dad out to dinner, so of course I had to come. Then he asked me out for lunch. We talked on the phone for two months before we went on another date. It was very natural and slow, unexpected---very un-Hollywood. And here we are two years later.

Q10

[Q] Playboy: If you're really Parker's sex teacher, as another interview suggested, what have you taught him lately?

[A] Longoria: That's something I definitely want to clear up. That magazine story was quoted a lot, especially on the Internet: "Eva is the experienced one in the bedroom," and "Tony's had sex only once." I'm 31, Tony's 24. Tony's been in one long-term relationship. I've been married, divorced and in several long-term relationships, so I'm definitely the experienced one. When I met him, he was already way more mature and responsible than I was by tenfold and had been in the spotlight longer than I had. What can make me wobbly in a relationship is immaturity, which spawns all the other ugly things, but luckily Tony's more mature than I am. I'd also like to say Tony and I are not engaged. I'm not pregnant. Tony's definitely the teacher. He teaches me a lot of sweet, sexy things to say in French, but I can say them only to Tony.

Q11

[Q] Playboy: Monogamy can be challenging, especially for two famous, busy people. Is monogamy overrated?

[A] Longoria: I think you're born monogamous, like a penguin---you have one mate, and that's all you can handle. I don't have time to be with more than one person. I think that's the key. I fly home to Texas every weekend to be with Tony, and we know we have limited time together, so we don't waste it on anything like fighting. In between we e-mail, phone and use our Sidekicks to send photos, which of course we keep clean. We're both so afraid of anything obscene turning up on the Internet.

Q12

[Q] Playboy: You've been candid in interviews about things you like, such as vibrators and G-strings. Are you currently packing a vibrator? Are you wearing a G-string?

[A] Longoria: The function of a G-string is to give you no panty lines. The byproduct of a G-string is that it's sexy. So the answer is yes, and it's white. The interviews in which I mentioned a vibrator were five years ago. With my relationship, obviously some things have changed.

Q13

[Q] Playboy: What's sexier to you: kissing or making love?

[A] Longoria: Kissing is way more personal than sex, which is why I hate, hate, hate doing kissing scenes on-screen. Sex can definitely be just physical. For me there's a connection---a sense of friendship, respect and sexuality---that comes more from a kiss than from sex. I didn't like it in the past when someone kissed my neck, but I love it when Tony does. Some people have a fascination with feet, but I hate that. Tony could touch my feet, though, and I don't think I would mind.

Q14

[Q] Playboy: You earned a degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M. When was the last time you applied your knowledge of human anatomy to movement?

[A] Longoria: It's been a while, but the knowledge is always applicable in my life because I want to be healthy. What I originally wanted to do was study sports medicine and be a trainer for a professional athletic team, like the Dallas Cowboys or the Spurs. I was a gym rat---kickboxing, yoga, Pilates, cycling, weight training, conditioning, circuit training. I just wanted to be in the gym all the time. Now I get bored with working out, so my trainer mixes it up for me.

Q15

[Q] Playboy: You grew up as a gun enthusiast on a ranch in Corpus Christi, Texas. What's the last thing you hunted down, killed, skinned and ate?

[A] Longoria: It's been a long time. Now I love to go target shooting and shoot a bull's-eye with my dad. There's definitely some truth to that old line "You can't get a man with a gun." Ever since I've become this sex symbol or whatever you call it, guys hit on me less. There's always that intimidation factor of a powerful woman who may shoot a man down---with or without a gun.

Q16

[Q] Playboy: How did your parents deal with guys hanging around the ranch? Were guns involved?

[A] Longoria: My dad wouldn't let boys even call the house, let alone come over. The first time a boy called me for homework or something, I was in sixth grade, and my dad flipped out. I'm the extreme opposite of everybody else in my family. I don't look like the rest of them, and it was hard having my sisters tease me all the time, saying I was adopted, I was switched at the hospital or they found me in a Dumpster. Now it's just kind of flattering to be on any list of the most beautiful, hottest or sexiest. I just send the articles to my sisters, say "Ha!" and gloat a lot.

Q17

[Q] Playboy: What early gigs would you have killed for?

[A] Longoria: After I auditioned to be one of the girls who walked out with the wrestlers on Battle Dome, I thought, I can't believe I didn't get that. All you had to do was be pretty. I auditioned for Dark Angel, which Jessica Alba got. Eva Mendes and I met each other at the Spanglish, auditions, and when I ran into her a few years later she said, "Can you imagine? If I had gotten Spanglish, I wouldn't have done Hitch, and if you had gotten Spanglish, you wouldn't have done Desperate Housewives." Growing up, my sisters and I were soap opera addicts because we didn't have money to go to the movies. So when I moved to L.A., I thought, If I could just get on a soap, my life would be great. I landed The Young and the Restless, but my character did so many bad things she was painted into a corner. So they fired me.

Q18

[Q] Playboy: Not only were you fired from that show but your gig on the revived Dragnet lasted only a year. Do you have a message for people who put you down as you were heading up the ladder?

[A] Longoria: My career and current status speak for themselves, so sometimes that's the victory right there---or knowing that people like the ones who fired me from The Young and the Restless are forced to see me on billboards everywhere. But I've always had cheerleaders along the way. The casting director for The Young and the Restless helped me find Dragnet, and when that was canceled ABC kept me and that's how I got Desperate Housewives. I'm not bitter at all, although there is that one fashion designer who said, "We're not dressing her," because he thought I was such a nobody. When he sends clothes for free now, I send them right back.

Q19

[Q] Playboy: Whose career intrigues you?

[A] Longoria: Actually, I want to live with Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and the babies. They're such a fun, close-knit family. I could just say, "Hey, guys, where are we going today?" I absolutely want to become a va-va-voom movie star like Catherine and still go home at night to put my kids to bed. I won't do a movie if it means canceling a vacation with Tony or my family. I would much rather get married and have babies than have the best career in the world.

Q20

[Q] Playboy: What do guys need to learn about making women like you---or Gabrielle---happy?

[A] Longoria: I believe in the Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus idea that we don't have the same thinking pattern. A man should at least listen to what a woman has to say and then try to please her in a way that doesn't compromise who he is. A lot of guys overdo it and say, "I did everything for her," but I say, "Yeah, but you had the backbone of a jellyfish." Never be a jellyfish.