Eva Longoria and America Ferrera are still feeling the effects of Sunday night’s Golden Globes.
The two presented an award together, and poked fun at Latina actresses being mistaken for each other — something the Hollywood Foreign Press Association itself did recently when its Twitter mistook Ferrera for “Jane the Virgin” star Gina Rodriguez during the nomination announcement.
“It has caused such a macro conversation,” Longoria said during her “Telenovela” panel at NBC’s Television Critics Association winter press tour on Wednesday. “There’s truth in jest. It went over very, very well.”
“Yes, hi, I’m Eva Longoria, not Eva Mendes,” Longoria said Sunday night, while Ferrera added, “And hi, I’m America Ferrera, not Gina Rodriguez.”
Longoria also fielded questions about diversity. “There’s a lot to be done to have more diversity in front of the camera, but it starts behind the camera,” she said.
“We’ve done such a great job in front of the camera, but our writers room is very diverse, the crew is very diverse … People automatically come to me with Latino-themed projects, but you can’t program to Latinos. They want great shows, good content. We’re lucky we hit both of those. General audiences can enjoy it and laugh at it, and yet Latinos can too — and have really embraced it.”
Longoria also believes there needs to be more diversity at the highest levels of the industry.
“There needs to be more gatekeepers at the decision-making level,” she said. “In the room we need to have that diversity. We need more Latinos, blacks, Asians, we need a lot more perspectives. How do you get there? We need a pipeline. You need an executive who’s touched every rung of that ladder.”