America Ferrera and Eva Longoria Split - H 2016
Getty ImagesEva Longoria and America Ferrera have deemed their Golden Globes bit, which poked fun at those who can’t tell Latina actresses apart, a success.
After host Ricky Gervais introduced the actresses on Sunday as “two people who your future president, Donald Trump, can’t wait to deport,” Longoria and Ferrera exercised their own comedy chops when the former referred to herself as “not Eva Mendes” and the latter, “not Gina Rodriguez.”
The joke was a reference to the Golden Globes’ unfortunate Twitter blunder last month when the award show’s official account confused Ferrera, who helped announce the nominees that morning, with Jane the Virgin star Rodriguez. “And I’m always called Eva Mendes,” Longoria told reporters Wednesday at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour while touting her new NBC comedy Telenovela.
Both Longoria and Ferrera — who was also at TCA peddling her own NBC sitcom, Superstore — discussed the origin of the bit during their respective half-hours in front of the press. “When we found out we were presenting together at the Golden Globes — they always send you copy that is horrible with bad jokes — so [America and I] took it back to both of our writing staffs and came up with some stuff.”
The Desperate Housewives alum went on to explain that the pair didn’t come up with the idea until the morning of the Globes. “It wasn’t until the day of that she sent me copy that they had written and … I was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s so funny,’ ” she said.
Ferrera added earlier in the day that Superstore creator and executive producer (and The Office vet) Justin Spitzer is to credit for the concept. “I went to Justin and said, ‘What is going to be funny here?’ And we went back and forth a bit, and then Justin came up with the idea to play on what happened to me,” she said. For his part, Spitzer assured reporters that it was Ferrera who wrote the lines.
Longoria acknowledged that the response to the joke was overwhelmingly positive. “It has caused such a macro conversation about it,” she said, calling it a “truth in jest” moment. “It went over very, very well. … Next season is ‘The America and Eva Show.’ ”
