Eva Longoria just called out Hollywood for its treatment of female directors compared to male directors.
While speaking at the Kering Women in Motion event at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the Desperate Housewives alum opened up about the hardships female directors face in a male-dominated industry.
When production for her directorial debut ‘Flamin’ Hot’ began, Longoria says she ‘felt the weight of every female director’.
While speaking with Variety chief correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister, Longoria said Hollywood doesn’t play fair when it comes to films directed by women.
“We don’t get a lot of bites at the apple,” the actress said. “My movie wasn’t low budget by any means — it wasn’t $100 million, but it wasn’t $2 million. When was the last Latina-directed studio film? It was like 20 years ago. We can’t get a movie every 20 years.”
She added, “The problem is if this movie fails, people go, ‘Oh Latino stories don’t work…female directors really don’t cut it.’”
“We don’t get a lot of at-bats. A white male can direct a $200 million film, fail and get another one. That’s the problem. I get one at-bat, one chance, work twice as hard, twice as fast, twice as cheap,” Longoria continued. “You really carry the generational traumas with you into the making of the film. For me, it fueled me. I was determined.”
“The illusion is that Hollywood is progressive,” she added. “The reality is that we’re still far behind in equal representation.”
“We’re still underrepresented in front of the camera, we’re still underrepresented behind the camera, we’re still not tapping into the females of the Latino community,” Longoria said. “We were at 7% in TV and film, now we’re at 5%, so the myth that Hollywood is so progressive is a myth when you look at the data.”
