Backstage With… Eva Longoria on her feature film directorial debut Flamin’ Hot
Have you ever wanted to watch a film based on crisps? Well, that’s exactly the basis of Eva Longoria’s feature directorial debut.
Flamin’ Hot tells the story of Richard Montañez, a janitor at Frito-Lay who helps establish the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos brand and climbs his way up the ladder to become an executive at the company.
The screenplay is based on Montañez’s memoir – A Boy, A Burrito And A Cookie – and stars Jesse Garcia as the potato chip pioneer, Annie Gonzalez as his wife Judy, Dennis Haysbert as Frito-Lay production manager Clarence C Baker and four-time Emmy Award winner Tony Shalhoub as PepsiCo chief executive Roger Enrico.
DeVon Franklin, Jesse Garcia, and Eva Longoria on the set of Flamin’ Hot. Pic: Searchlight Pictures.
Pic: Searchlight Pictures
Filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2021, Eva Longoria says she “went in and fought for the job” after reading the script and became “obsessed” with becoming the person to tell the story.
“It’s a pretty powerful story,” she tells Sky News’ Backstage podcast. “I read it. I was blown away by Richard Montañez’s life, and I was like, ‘How do I not know this story?’ He’s Mexican-American, he’s from my community, I’m Mexican-American – everybody needs to know this story.”
Longoria has spent the past 10 years directing TV, an experience that she says prepared her for the film’s quick eight-week schedule.
Pic: Searchlight Pictures
The production employed around 204 New Mexican crew members, 44 New Mexican principal cast members and 875 extras of New Mexican background.
Longoria says she saw Flamin’ Hot as a chance to straighten out misconceptions about the Hispanic community and the way Mexican-Americans live.
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“I think there’s obviously stereotypes that have been about our community for so long, but also because we don’t get many movies like this,” she says, adding that “Hollywood gets to define what a hero is”.
“I had the opportunity to create a hero and I wanted him to look like Richard Montañez. I wanted him to be brown. I wanted him to sound like my dad. And I want our community specifically to be able to look up onscreen and go, ‘Wow, that guy did all that’.”
Montañez and his contested version of events
Richard Montañez was born in an east Los Angeles barrio community to Mexican-American parents in the late 1950s.
Pic: Searchlight Pictures
He worked as a janitor at a California Frito-Lay factory when he says he conceived “his life-changing idea” to create and market a snack targeted to the Mexican-American community.
Just before filming for Longoria’s Flamin’ Hot began, the LA Times published an article seemingly refuting Montañez’s claims that he invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto.
Pic: Searchlight Pictures.
Frito-Lay told the paper that “none of our records show that Richard was involved in any capacity in the Flamin’ Hot test market”, adding: “We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market.”
When asked if it had an impact on her directorial decisions, Longoria says: “No, it had zero impact on the movie.
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‘This is his truth and this movie is true’
“I never wanted to do the documentary of The Flaming Hot Cheeto and how it was invented. I’ve always wanted to tell the true story of Richard Montañez, and his story is fascinating. His life is fascinating.”
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Longoria says he “just happened to have a hand in creating the number one snack in the world, which is a multibillion-dollar product”.
Pic: Searchlight Pictures
Pic: Searchlight Pictures
The script for the Disney+ film was rewritten to be from the perspective of Montañez and to include fantasy sequences, allowing the viewer to see “what was happening and what he felt happened”.
Longoria says it allowed them to have more creative freedom to tell the story and Montañez’s version of events.
“This is his truth, and this movie is true. So, yeah, that never really affected the script. The script was always what it was. It was always Richard’s story,” she says.
Richard Montañez has since retired from his executive position at Frito-Lay and has become an author and motivational speaker.
Flamin’ Hot is available to stream now on Disney+
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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