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Eva Is A White House Wife Now
Date: 17 July 2006
THANKS to her role as sultry Gabrielle Solis, she has become a star and an international pin-up. But although she's now a Desperate Housewife, sexy Eva Longoria is no damsel in distress - as Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland have found out.
Eva swapped the life of spoilt Gabrielle, the Wisteria Lane resident with the skimpiest wardrobe, for a no-nonsense role as gun-toting secret service agent Jill Marin in her new film, The Sentinel, where she teams up with Douglas and Sutherland to uncover a plot to assassinate the President.
As part of their preparation, the three actors received gun training - and Eva outgunned her co-stars at the rifle range, with scores that put her in the top, ten per cent of police marksmen k. in the USA.
So how did Jack Bauer and the former Streets of San Francisco cop react to getting their butts kicked by this tiny Latina lovely?
"They were pretty upset. It was funny," laughs Eva.
"Women are better shooters. At the firing range where you shoot at a paper image of a man, all of mine were in the bullseye.
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"Kiefer's were a little bigger and lower and Michael missed completely."
And Eva revealed she honed her gun skills as a kid growing up on a ranch as her dad was determined that his girls should be as comfortable carrying a gun as they would toting a Prada handbag.
Eva said: "He educated us about guns, and we used to go target shooting. We shot beer cans, cups, tomatoes. Anything that would explode or make a noise, we shot it.
"Before Desperate Housewives, I did a cop show and for that, we had to go to two weeks of intense S.W.A.T. training with the LAPD. That involved firearms training and climbing buildings. It was like boot camp and that prepared me for this role."
And if Michael Douglas was mortified to be shown up by a girl half his age, he only has himself to blame - after all, he called up Eva personally and urged her to join him on the film
"He said, 'You've got to do this movie,'" she explains.
"He was very sweet. Michael, Kiefer and I had an amazing work ethic. It was like a race to get on set because we were all early birds. Nobody was a diva, but Kiefer took the longest in hair and make-up."
She may not be a diva, but Eva is certainly something of a tough cookie, overcoming childhood taunts about her looks to become a favourite cover girl. Growing up in Texas, the youngest of four sisters was dubbed an ugly duckling by her own family, compared to her sisters
"When I was growing up, they called me La Prieta Fea - the Ugly Dark One," she says.
"I'm the darkest one in the family. I actually think it helped me develop a personality. I couldn't rely on my looks.
"A lot of people made fun of me because I looked so different from my sisters. It wasn't until I was 15 or 16 that I came into my own and starting getting attention.
"So when I see myself on magazine covers now, I'm very proud and I laugh at all those people who were mean to me when I was growing up."
Since she blossomed, Eva has rarely been desperate for male company. Four years ago she married actor Tyler Christopher, but they divorced in 2004.
Since then she's been linked with 'NSync member JC Chasez, Kiefer Sutherland and Hayden Christensen. But she now spends all her spare time with NBA basketball star Tony Parker, who is seven years her junior.
Eva flies back to see Tony in San Antonio every weekend, and is taking French lessons so she and Tony can chat in his native language, although she says the actress and the sports hero already have a lot in common
"I love pretending to be something else," Eva says. "I think it's fun to put yourself in someone else's shoes and make choices you wouldn't norm ally make. It's just like my boyfriend Tony. I think what he does is silly too. He plays basketball, as a form of entertainment."
Source: Dailyrecord.co.uk
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