Eva Longoria Recalls Being the ‘Ugly Duckling’ of Her Family, Relied on Being ‘Funny’ and ‘Smart’

Eva Longoria did not have her sights set on Hollywood when she was a child.

“I was performative in my family because I was the ugly duckling. Documentation is available if you need it,” Longoria, 50, quipped to Today in an interview published on Sunday, March 23. “My three sisters look alike. They are all blonde. I knew I wasn’t the pretty one and I was like, ‘OK, I’m not the pretty one so I’m going to be the funny one. I’m going to be the smart one.’”

Longoria, the youngest of four daughters, was raised on a ranch in Texas and grew up with chickens. “We had to go get the eggs in the morning. We had to milk the cow for the milk that was going to go in the coffee and in our cereal,” she recalled.

Longoria went on to receive a degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M, partly using scholarship money from a beauty pageant she won. While competing, Longoria wound up in Los Angeles — and found her way to Hollywood.

“I land in Hollywood and I don’t know what happened. I just was like, ‘I think I’m going to be an actor,’” Longoria recalled.

Longoria skyrocketed to stardom when she starred on Desperate Housewives, which aired for eight seasons from 2004 to 2012.

“By the time I got Desperate Housewives, I remember when it aired, and I was like, ‘Mom, you gotta watch, it’s called Desperate Housewives,’” Longoria said. “She watches and she calls me afterwards. She goes, ‘Honey you were in it a lot.’ I go, ‘Yeah mom, I’m one of the stars.’ And she goes, ‘Are you going to be in it next week?’ [I go], ‘Mom I’m going to be on every week.’ It was a big adjustment for everybody around me, but not me.”

Longoria has since starred in several other TV shows and movies and added producing and directing under her belt. In her most recent endeavor, Longoria starred in the film Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip, which is set to be released on Friday, March 28.

“I loved the idea of doing a movie that my son can watch and that I can watch with him,” Longoria said. “It’s really a fun road trip movie but with a family and it just happens to be a Latino family. A lot of times when we are on TV and film as Latinos, it’s about our trauma. It’s about our struggle or identity. So to be able to be in a movie that lives in joy and lives in family and lives in a different space then we normally see. I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do. Sign me up.’”

Longoria shares son Santiago, 6, with husband José Bastón. Longoria is stepmother to Bastón’s three children, José, Talia and Mariana, whom he shares with ex-wife Natalia Esperón.