More often than not, you can tell a lot about a person from their handshake. And, if that adage is applied to Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, then what you get is a celebrity who just envelops you with unrestrained warmth. No cold, firm handshake there. Instead, the diminutive actress, 36, gives the bear-hug equivalent of a greeting by shaking my extended hand vigorously and learning to pronounce my name correctly.
She topped off her exuberant entrance with an endearing expletive.
"Damn, I knew you would ask that! Bloomingdale's," she laughed when asked who had designed her chic cream and grey ensemble, almost in sync with the minimalist decor at Armani Hotel, our meeting place.
The global fashion icon and highest-paid TV actress of the year (as named by Forbes on Thursday) was in town to launch the autumn-winter New York New York campaign at Bloomingdale's in The Dubai Mall on Saturday, hundreds of fans who had spent money at the store in order to enter her inner circle. Calling out to her stylist, she squirmed in her seat and flipped the label on her skirt which read "Lanvin". But she didn't need any help with her shoes.
"The shoes I know: Jimmy Choo. I have never been a big shopper, except for shoes. Actually, I am not a shoe-shopper, I am a shoe-collector. Even if they don't fit, I don't care. As long as they fit into my closet, I buy it," Longoria said in an exclusive chat with tabloid! ahead of her in-store appearance.
Like her hit on-screen persona — the saucy Gabrielle Solis of Wisteria Lane — she's all about instant gratification.
"I am very impulsive when it comes to shopping. No matter what the size or colour, I want it and I want it now. I want to put it in my hands right away, feel it and wear it tonight."
But that's where the resemblance to Gaby ends, Longoria claims. Unlike her manipulative, man-eating TV avatar, the Texas-born, ranch-raised actress is a domestic goddess at heart.
"Gaby is an exact opposite of me. I am a family person — I love to cook and I am very domestic. I liked playing her, because it's a lot more colourful than my life. Gaby used to say and do things that people wish they could say and do. She would actually do it — it was so much fun playing her."
‘Bittersweet'
Seducing her teenage gardener and cheating on her rich husband while he was away are all in a day's work for the self-centred Gaby.
However, her successful innings will soon come to an end, with the producers announcing the current eighth season of Desperate Housewives as the final one. Her thoughts?
"My feelings are bittersweet. You know, I am excited to start a new chapter in my life. It has been eight years and it's a long time to do one character, but at the same time, we created such a family. I am going to miss the girls, the crew and the cast."
It may be the end of an era for the soap star who can safely credit her global fame to Desperate Housewives, but it's all yet to sink in. Longoria, who divorced Tony Parker, her basketball player husband of four years this year and is currently dating Eduardo Cruz, worked her way up in the television world. A cameo on Beverly Hills 90210 and playing the psychotic Isabella on The Young and The Restless were a part of her learning curve.
"We have six more months of filming left. So it has not hit me yet. In May, I may be a complete mess. The other day, we were on Wisteria Lane at the premiere party of the eighth season and I was thinking: ‘Who's going to film in this iconic street?' It just made me sad thinking other people move in and life goes on."
The landmark series may wrap up soon, but the bonds the cast have built over the last few years will remain, adds Longoria.
"Felicity [Huffman] and I are very close. We live next to each other, so we see each other all the time. Marcia [Cross] is great. She is a kind human being, and did you know that she has a degree in psychology? She is the set doctor, the set psychiatrist — she listens to everybody's problems.
"Most of all, I am going to miss my husband on the show, Ricardo [Chavira]. He lives down the street from me. But all of us have really full lives outside of our work."
Hollywood calling
Multiple brand endorsements for cosmetic and electronic giants, cookbook writing, her Beso restaurant chain and a slew of film projects will keep her busy for the foreseeable future.
Longoria has three Hollywood films coming up, following from her first major role in a Hollywood flick, the 2006 thriller The Sentinel, starring Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland.
"I am doing a film with Billy Bob Thornton called Baytown Disco and a film with Forest Whitaker and Andy Garcia, who is great. I also have another film with Andy Garcia, called Christiada. And, next spring, I will be filming with Brendan Fraser — so yeah, I hope it's Hollywood calling."
She adds that a sequel to her bestselling cookbook Eva's Kitchen will have to wait until next year when she can breathe a bit easier. A self-titled control freak, she is hands-on when it comes to sorting out her businesses.
The only exception to the rule is when it comes to placing full faith in the writers of Housewives. "Everybody keeps asking me how I want the series to end. I have no suggestions.
"I completely trust the writers and I have never once given a note about Gabrielle to the writers saying I wish Gaby would do this or do more of that."
The impossibly slim star even agreed to ditch her character's high gloss finish in the fifth season, which had Gaby saddled with two kids and a blind, jobless husband to fend for.
"I was so excited when they asked, ‘Can you gain some weight?' and I was like, ‘Don't tell me twice.' I don't have to work out, I don't have to eat right and I always wanted to cut my hair short — I was game. I loved the storyline. It was a five-year jump and she had kids — the whole new side of Gaby that you had never seen.
"It was so much fun to just let go."
And let go she did at Bloomingdale's on Saturday as hundreds of her fans turned up to see her in the flesh.
"It's my first time in the Middle East interacting with my fans from this side of the world. It is going to be pretty impressive — I have travelled everywhere except here. It is always nice to meet people who admire my show, my work and my fashion."
Eva on
Though the infamous "no personal questions" rule-book was thrown at us, Longoria was game to talk about everything else:
Rumours about her auditioning for the racy Bollywood action film Dhoom 3: "Nobody has contacted me on that yet. I didn't know of Bollywood until I met Aishwarya Rai [Bachchan]. We do L'Oreal together and I think she is the most beautiful person in the world — both inside and out. I am open to [films] in any part of the world, I love travelling. I love doing films about other cultures."
Her latest buy: "A pale nude Valentino purse in Las Vegas, because I needed a bigger one. Pale nude just goes with everything."
How she shops: "I don't have the time now to go through racks of stuff or to go to a mall. I buy a lot of stuff through photo shoots, since they are all in my size. That's also one of the reasons why I am so excited to go to a mall in Dubai. It's been long."
On her favourite recipe in her cookbook, Eva's Kitchen: "I love the guacamole, the tortilla soup and chilli-rubbed skirt [steak] recipes."
On clinching the highest-paid TV actress of 2011 position in the Forbes list: "I have done really well with Desperate Housewives and also with all of my endorsements. I have built a brand outside of my show... I think it is a nice recognition of that."
