Eva Longoria doesn’t feel that a “Desperate Housewives” reboot is necessary — but if the right idea came along, she’d be the “first to sign up.”
Longoria made an appearance at Content London on Wednesday for a panel featuring her production company Hyphenate Media Group, which she co-founded with Cris Abrego last year. While discussing the projects Hyphenate is looking for, Longoria noted that “we produce with purpose” and ask the questions “What are you saying?” and “Why now?” That then led her to discuss a potential “Desperate Housewives” reboot.
“There’s not a ‘why now’ for that show,” she said. “I mean, some people do reboots because it’s like, ‘Reboot!’ It’s a good title. But I’ve talked to [‘Desperate Housewives’ creator] Marc Cherry a thousand times and it’s like, we fully mined those characters because we were on for a decade and this was 24 episodes a year … That’s a lot of story that you burn through.”
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At that point, Abrego interjected: “And for the record, if ‘Desperate Housewives’ does come back, we’d like to produce it.”
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Added Longoria, “I’d be the first one to sign up! I miss Gaby.”
Longoria played Gaby Solis on the comedy drama from 2004 to 2012. In a recent interview with People, Cherry said his idea for a reboot would be a prequel series set in 1966. He estimated that “about 70,000 people” have asked him about a “Desperate Housewives” reboot and admitted that he does “have a couple of ideas to do it.” However, he’s in agreement with Longoria that there needs to be “a good enough ‘why’ to do it.”
Hyphenate chief strategy officer Karla Pita Loor and showrunner/producer Gloria Calderón Kellett were also on the Content London panel to discuss Hyphenate’s partnership with Calderón Kellett’s GloNation Studios. The showrunner and producer, who is best known for her Emmy-winning reboot of Norman Lear’s iconic comedy “One Day at a Time,” has started developing, packaging and producing content with support from Hyphenate. Longoria wasn’t meant to attend the session in London but decided to make a last minute trip to join the Hyphenate Media panel.
Calderón Kellett said she partnered with Hyphenate instead of taking overall deals with studios, as she had in the past, because “it was not meeting my ambition.” She added that she now has 23 projects she’s in development on, including two series and three films as well as reality, documentary and podcast content.
“On the overall deal, what you don’t realize is they sort of own you. They own your brain for the time you are on that overall deal,” she said, adding of Longoria and Abrego: “If I’m going to trust any two people, why not go on the string with them and disrupt and figure something new out.”
Longoria echoed this speaking about her own career. “I always feel like I’m not tapping into my full potential,” she said. “That’s why I went into directing, because I felt like I was just saying lines on a page.”
Though Longoria lamented that “our business is so slow,” having control of her own time with Hyphenate has allowed her to focus on more than one thing at a time. “I think that’s the problem with our industry. It’s like, ‘Wait, you can only do one show,’ and you’re like, ‘No, I can do more than one,'” she said. “Especially if you’re a woman. If you want something done, ask a busy woman to do it because then it will get done.”
