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  • 6 weeks ago
Eva Longoria broke into acting with her role on The Young and the Restless and later made headlines starring in Desperate Housewives. She told Fortune that she held onto a headhunting job for two years until she felt comfortable enough to pursue acting full-time.
Transcript
00:00I mean, I landed in LA, got a job, you know, and I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get
00:03a job.
00:04I'm not gonna be a struggling actor. I'm gonna figure this out. I went to a temp agency to get
00:10a temp job. I was like, I don't want, I'm gonna need to be available for auditions or whatever.
00:14They ended up hiring me. And then he kept saying, he kept going, why would you want to be an
00:19actress?
00:20You're so good at business. It's one in a million chance you're going to be successful at acting.
00:26And I said, I know. And I'm the one in a million. Like they're waiting. Like I have to go
00:32do this.
00:33So then I get Young and the Restless because I was still auditioning and a headhunter. And I wouldn't
00:37tell my clients I was an actress because in LA, it was kind of like, oh, a dumb actress. And
00:43I wanted
00:43them to take me seriously as a, as a business person that's managing their account. Then I
00:47got a role in Young and the Restless and it paid me like $900 a week before taxes. And it
00:52was like,
00:52I can't live on this. I was making so much more than that as a headhunter. So I kept my
00:57headhunting
00:57job while I did Young and the Restless. In my dressing room, I was doing the headhunting and
01:03I was like negotiating 401ks and salaries and interviewing and reading resumes and placing
01:09people. And then they would be like, Eva, ready on set. And I'm like, okay, I gotta go.
01:13I would just hang up. And then I would go to set and act. And then I'd come out. And
01:17I did that for
01:18two years. And one day a client goes, are you Isabella Brana on Young and the Restless? I was
01:24like, oh my God, no, no, no, no. That's not me. That's not me. And I was like always denying
01:27that
01:28that was me because I didn't want to take it seriously. So I couldn't quit until my third year
01:33on Young and the Restless when I was finally bumped up in salary and I could make enough.
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