Longoria: I’m desperate to be a housewife

Dateline / NBC Stone Phillips is at home with Eva Longoria, who demonstrates how she's making her favorite enchiladas.

Phillips: You have made some surprisingly candid remarks lately—

Longoria: Oh God.

Phillips: About sex.

Longoria: Have I?  Huh-uh.

Phillips: To the point where ABC wanted you to ease back on that a little bit.

Longoria: Oh, they were harmless about it. They were just like, “Could you stop saying ‘vibrator’?”

Her remarks came from an interview with Self magazine, which features articles on women’s health and sexuality.

Longoria: I think it’s very important for women to be comfortable about their sexuality and to not think everything’s a taboo. And so I made a comment in there about vibrators and the tabloids took it apart and just ran with it.  But I didn’t mean it in a vulgar way. I meant it in a healthy way.

Phillips:  A helpful, healthy way...

Longoria:  Helpful, healthy way for women.

Phillips: Has sex always been something that you have talked about?

Longoria: No.

Phillips: Freely, openly? 

Longoria: I guess maybe it’s been comfortable with me and my friends, or me and my sisters.  But I forget who I am sometimes, and that I’m on this big show, and I have to, unfortunately as much as I hate to censor myself, I should.

Phillips:  But you believe what you’re saying?

Longoria:  I do believe what I’m saying but it doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree with it and it doesn’t mean you’re not going to get stuff for it.

Where Longoria would like attention to be focused is on causes close to her heart— like her role as national spokesperson for Padres, an organization helping Latino children with cancer and their families.  

She says it helps her keep life in Hollywood in perspective.

Longoria: So what if I don’t get this part? There are people dying with cancer? So what if I’m not wearing Oscar de la Renta or Carolina Herrera to the Emmys? So what if I didn’t get nominated for the Emmys? I have to go and do this— it's way more important.

Also important to Longoria? Reversing the stereotypes that have been so pervasive in Hollywood. She says the portrayal of Wisteria lane’s Hispanic couple is a step in the right direction.

Longoria: Let me tell you what the Latinos are most proud of when the role of the Solises came out was that we were the most affluent on the block. We were the richest people on the block and that we had a white gardener (laughs).

Phillips: Turning the tables.

Longoria: Turning the tables.

It’s why she’s careful about the parts she chooses. Like her first motion picture role, as a lawyer, in “Harsh Times,” and as a Secret Service agent in “The Sentinel,” due out next year.

With a new movie career and a hit TV show, it’s remarkable how un-Hollywood Longoria remains.  As thrilled as she’d be to have a star on the Walk of Fame, she still prefers a quieter life in the Lone Star state, where she goes every chance she gets— mostly to San Antonio, where her family now lives.  

Longoria: I’m just a Texan true and true. I want to move back to Texas as soon as I’m done with the show, whenever that is. You know, I’m never followed by paparazzi in San Antonio. I’m never bothered with people in the trees trying to get a picture of me in my kitchen in San Antonio.

Phillips: So you can be at peace in Texas?

Longoria: Absolutely. I go to the supermarket and I go shopping with my mom. I go to Wal-mart.

Earlier this year in San Antonio, she found something she wasn’t really shopping for— a soulmate.  

Longoria: He could be the mailman. He could be the banker. Anything.

Phillips: Or the point guard.

Longoria: Or the point guard. (Laughs)

The point guard who’s become her partner is San Antonio spur Tony Parker. They’ve been dating for 8 months. At 23, the Belgian-born French-speaking NBA star is seven years younger than Longoria, but she says it was “vive la difference” from the moment they met in the Spurs locker room.

Phillips: Was there instant attraction?

Longoria: Yes. He took my breath away. And I was just like... I had just come back from France so I spoke a little bit of French and I was like “Bon jour, Je m’appelle Eva” and he was like— “Blah bla bla [French imitation]” — and I was like- “Oh no, no. That’s all I know — ‘Hi my name is Eva’ that’s all I know.”

As for their future, Longoria’s determined to avoid past mistakes.  Three years ago she eloped to Las Vegas, only to see that marriage fail. These days, her recipe for romance still calls for lots of heat, but just a little more time.

Phillips: How’s Tony at enchilada frying?

Longoria: Tony doesn’t help out, he’s not allowed in the kitchen.

Still, we couldn’t help wondering if those homemade enchiladas aren’t the only things she’s got cooking.

Phillips: Do you want to get married?

Longoria: Absolutely. I do very much.

Phillips: He’s the guy.

Longoria: Oh with him?

Phillips: Oh.

Longoria: I’m just kidding. Thought you just meant in general. I would love to see what happens with Tony. I would love to be that person in the proper way. You know?  I want the engagement and the wedding and the kids and the family— I’m desperate to be a housewife.

One day, you may be able to try Eva's enchiladas.  In addition to everything else she's got going, Longoria says she's exploring the idea of opening her own Mexican restaurant.

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