Eva Longoria is an eternal optimist; she tells me it’s built into her DNA before adding, “Not everybody is; people need encouragement; people need to be empowered. Sometimes women just need permission to go and be great.” She’s speaking to me on the move; securing time with her is a difficult and logistically painstaking process. Since having her son six years ago, she says, “If it takes me away from my son and time for my family, it better be something I really wanna do or something worth being away from him.” No pressure, then.
Longoria is passionate about empowering women to embrace their failures. Fierce and determined, there’s not a shred of regret when she talks about what it’s taken to get to where she is. But that doesn’t mean her life has been without setbacks. She went on hundreds of auditions in her early career—including for Hitch (she narrowly missed out on the role to Eva Mendes)—and more recently, she’s struggled to break into directing.
