Desperate Hussy Tells All

She may have been snubbed by the Golden Globes, but Eva Longoria ain't complaining these days. Her insta-breakout role as suburban adulteress Gabrielle Solis on Desperate Housewives has made this 29-year-old Young & the Restless alumna one of TV's hottest (in every sense of the word) young actresses. Here, Longoria dishes with TV Guide Online about her show's best-comedy Globe, her desire to defeat CSI and her 90210 memories.

TV Guide Online: Why are people so fascinated by Gabrielle's affair with John (Jesse Metcalfe)?
Eva Longoria: It's the journey to find love and happiness, and no matter what route that takes you, audiences like that. It's very entertaining. I do a lot of awful things to get there, but in the end, it's still a pure hope of getting love, so that's what the audience is attracted to. People appreciate it and think it's funny — I don't think there's going to be a lot of 40-year-old women running off with their 17-year-old gardeners.

TVGO: Is the adulterous relationship between these two over?
Longoria: I don't think it's ever going to be over. There's something between John and Gabrielle that she doesn't get from anyone else. Because if it was just to have an affair, she could get any man in the neighborhood. But she chose John for a reason — his innocence and hope and his purity of love for her. That's always going to be attractive to Gabrielle in [the] world of impurity and selfishness that she lives in.

TVGO: Housewives won the best-comedy Golden Globe. Do you think it's a comedy?
Longoria: The problem is, the show is a true dichotomy — it's an absolute dramedy. So when we were submitted for the Golden Globes for comedy, I was like, "How are we going to compete with sitcoms that are purely comedy?" But this show is so wickedly funny that it blows away any sitcom.

TVGO: Do you consider your show a soap opera?
Longoria: I don't think it's a soap at all. This is way smarter and funnier than any soap I've ever been on, and I've been on all of them. It's its own creature.

TVGO: What do you recall of your first TV role as "Flight Attendant #3" on the final season of Beverly Hills, 90210?
Longoria: My scene was with Luke Perry. I just ran into him at Teri Hatcher's birthday party. He went, "Oh my God, I'm so awful, because I don't remember. Was I nice back then?" I went, "You were a doll." And he went, "OK, because that's what matters."

TVGO: Do you think Housewives will overtake CSI to become TV's No. 1 show?
Longoria: Absolutely. CSI wasn't even in the Top 5 its first year. We've been No. 1 twice. Of course, one week, CSI wasn't on. But I think America's done with the crime dramas.

TVGO: How are you handling the sudden press interest in your personal life?
Longoria: That's overwhelming — people always taking pictures of you and wanting to know whom you're dating and where you're going and what you're wearing. That's not something you can ever prepare for. If you get used to it, you're weird. It's always odd, and that's the only part of this ride that I don't like.

For more scoop on Gabrielle's torrid affair on Desperate Housewives, read the current issue of TV Guide, on newsstands now.