Apple TV+ recently announced their series Land of Women starring Golden Globe nominee Eva Longoria will have its global premiere on June 26, 2024 with the airing of two episodes. The remaining episodes will air afterwards every Wednesday through July 24, 2024.
Actress Eva Longoria has come a long way in her career since she was first introduced to prime time television audiences, portraying Gabrielle Solis in the ABC series, Desperate Housewives (2004-2012). Now she is serving as Executive Producer and Star of Apple TV’s Land of Women, shot in both English and Spanish. Longoria portrays Gala, a high-society New Yorker whose life is turned upside down when her husband implicates the family in a financial scandal, forcing her to flee, along with her mother and teenage daughter.
Hailing from Apple Studios, and inspired by award-winning author Sandra Barneda’s best-selling novel La tierra de las mujeres, Land of Women is created by Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira and Paula Fernández and is directed by Iris Award winner Carlos Sedes.
Also starring legendary film and television star Carmen Maura and newcomer Victoria Bazúa.
Longoria quips, “Yes, my character Gala, is indeed suffering an identity crisis at the beginning of the show. Her whole life has been a lie, and she has to flee suddenly to Northern Spain, living in a small vineyard with her mother, who was raised there and now hates it; and her daughter, who is definitely going through a rebellious phase. To top it off, off, the people she meets, speak a language she doesn’t really understand (Catalon).”
The series creator/writer and Executive Producer Ramón Campos interjects, “We live with different languages. Eva and I are now speaking English to be interviewed; but the moment we start to speak in Spanish we live in that world. We both think this situation must be reflected in the series. It’s important to authentically function in that environment.”
Castilian and Catalan accents were heavily incorporated into the series, which is a sharp contrast to Mexican, which is what Longoria spoke growing up in Corpus Christi. “I think streaming has really broken down content,” says Longoria. “We no longer just watch what’s from America and Spaniards don’t just watch what’s from Spain. “We now live in a global community.”
Ramón Campos has lived through this streaming renaissance of programming, particularly in Spain where Netflix and now Apple are now invested heavily in local output. “I started with FreeTV” he says. When we had an amazingly successful series, Netflix come to Spain and we created “Cable Girls.” We were very lucky and we developed series for Amazon, for Netflix, and now for the amazing Apple TV+.
The episodes move smoothly, authentically flowing from Gala speaking English to her American daughter, then speaking Spanish with her mother. The ladies at the vineyard are from Catalonia, so they speak Catalan. It makes for a very rich, fun environment because it’s one of the big sources of comedy…miscommunication.
“I think it’s important to analyze the people who wait for your story,” says Campos. “I don’t believe in creating series just for me. I love my stories, but I always create the series for the people. My first audience is my mother. When I finish one series, I send my mother the episode and she has one of two reactions. Either it’s ‘I love it, it’s amazing,’ or ‘Oh, it’s nice.” It is with the second response, I know I’m in trouble?”
In the 12 years since the end of Desperate Housewives, Longoria has mostly been producing and directing, with a little bit of acting thrown in. So, how does she choose what she wants to act in, what kinds of projects does she want to produce and direct? Also, was she really interested in continuing to work on both sides of the camera?
Longoria just shrugs. “I wanted to get behind the camera to have more control of my career. I wanted to tell the stories from my community, from a woman’s perspective. And I started doing that during Desperate Housewives, I used that series as my film school.” Longoria shot her first two short films during Desperate Housewives and then produced Devious Maids with Marc Cherry. That’s also when she started her episodic directing career. It was Campos who segued her career into starring in a series.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Campos continues. “I love to write for women set in period series, but I decided I wanted to also speak in contemporary times, because I have strong women in my life. My team, all are women. And for me, it became very important to speak about them. And then Eva approached me.”
Longoria continues, “Ramón and I did Grand Hotel together. I optioned the format from Spain and that’s where we met. And then I optioned another one of his shows that I loved. And then after that, I was like, “Ramón, why don’t you write me a show? I want to drink wine and shoot in Spain.” He just shrugged and said, O.K.’ Oh my God! I was really excited to work with a showrunner like Ramón.” I’ve never acted in Spanish. I have never shot in Spain. To be playing such a phenomenal Spanish cast, including the legendary Carmen Maura, it was just something I couldn’t pass up.”
The series is produced by Bambu Studios, and executive produced by showrunner Campos, Neira, Sedes, Iris Award winner Teresa Fernández-Valdés, Ben Spector, Sandra Condito and Longoria via her award-winning production company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, founded in 2005 by Longoria to produce film, television and documentaries.
