Eva La Rue - Actress

By: Sari N. Kent

Eva La Rue rose to acclaim while playing "Dr. Maria Santos Grey," on the ABC soap opera, "All My Children," from 1993 to 1997. She returned to the show and played amnesiac "Maureen Gorman," from 2002 to 2005. She received a Daytime Emmy nomnation in the category of "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series," for her performance. Following her depature from the soap, in 2005, she became a member of the cast of the highly successful CBS television series, "CSI: Miami," as forensic scientist, "Natalia Boa Vista." She is also involved with a number of notable charities where she is using her fame to accomplish great feats for afflicitions such as autism and breast cancer.

SNK: Congratulations on your role on CSI: Miami as forensic scientist, Natalia Boa Vista. I know the role is different from ones you have played in the past. What differences, either production or acting wise, have you found?

ELR: From the soap?

SNK: Yes.

ELR: It’s like night and day. On a soap opera, we do a one-hour show in a day. On CSI: Miami, we shoot a one-hour show in nine days.

SNK: Oh, wow!

ELR: On a soap opera, an average day would be like 25 pages of dialogue memorized, and on a tough day it would be 50 pages of dialogue memorized, to the point where you can’t even remember your name. Ha ha. So, CSI: Miami is like this incredibly fabulous job to have, it's so much easier. The hours are easier. It's great, it’s amazing.

SNK: It sounds like it. I know, since I am a huge soap fan, and I’ve heard other soap actors say, how the schedule is absolutely grueling.

ELR: It is. The interesting thing about it is that when you're in it, you don’t realize how hard you’re working because it’s what you know. But, when you get out of it, you’re like, “Ah, I cannot believe I kept up that pace for that many years.”

SNK: Oh, boy! I don’t suppose you could slip me some inside scoops on CSI: Miami’s current season for our readers?

ELR: Ooh, we actually have some really good stuff coming up with David [Caruso, who plays Horatio Caine] and his son. There’s some great internal affairs investigation stuff going on, I really can’t tell you about. And I’m having trouble getting my gun license. I’m not a good shot, I’m more of a brainiac and not such a great shot. But that’s going to come into play later on.

SNK: Great, thanks for that.

ELR: There’s a bunch of other stuff that I can’t tell you about. Secrets I would get fired for if I told you.

SNK: Oh no, I wouldn’t want you to get fired just to satisfy our readers.

With this new role, have you found it at all difficult to juggle work and your home life with your daughter, Kaya?

ELR: It’s so much easier to juggle this schedule than it was with the soap schedule. I really felt like when I was doing the soap, that I missed the first couple of years of her life. This is just so much easier to juggle being a mom, because it's not like there’s just two of us on the scene, there’s seven actors so we don’t all work everyday, and it's like an average of three or four days a week. It’s just so much easier.

SNK: It sounds like it. I read that you recently won a Gracie Allen Award from the Foundation of American Women in Radio & Television. What was it like to be bestowed with such an honor?

ELR: Oh, that was really incredible. It was exciting. My friend, Kelly Ripa, gave me the award. She was the one who presented in that category. So, it was just a fun night for both of us. We got to be kidless and have a grown-up, dress-up night, kind of a girls’ night out. It really is an amazing event. I know it’s not a very well known one, but it is in New York, because it’s a lot of journalists and newscasters and television women in business. It’s a really empowering women event in New York.

SNK: It sounds fascinating. I’m sure it was a treat for you to have Ms. Ripa give you the award.

ELR: Yeah, that was very fun.

SNK: You also co-hosted the Style Network show, Modern Girl's Guide To Life. When did that show wrap, and how did that come about for you?

ELR: That show really came about purely by accident. They called me at my last year at All My Children, and I’d done a lot of hosting, off and on throughout my career, in between acting. I worked with a great group of girls. It was a really fun show; I learned so much, just tidbits about stuff. You know, everything from how to make your mascara last longer; you put a couple of drops of witch hazel in it. It’s like all those kind of things, you know, like wrapping, gift making and party throwing, and how to hang a picture better, and barbecuing, and which beers are good. Though I don’t really like beer, but what beers are good girl beers, just like everything. I was so sad when they stopped doing it, because it was a really fun show and, I thought, an informative show. And people would come up to me on the street, even after I started CSI: Miami. We have like 20 million viewers. The people that came up to me on the street, I don’t know what the Style Network gets in terms of viewers, but it’s certainly not 20 million, it's probably like 10, I don’t know. But, so many people, it seemed like more people were stopping me on the street for the Modern Girl's. They were like, “Oh, my God. I love that show. I loved what you did about the blah blah blah.”

SNK: It sounds like it was a great experience for you. Do you know when that show ended?

ELR: It ended, not this last summer, but the summer before, that was our last year.

SNK: Okay, and I also read on your official web site, that you were in a New York production of Women of 9. How was that experience, and would you like to do more stage work in the future?

ELR: Yeah, I feel sort of unfinished in New York, even though I spent so many years there. I think it’s because I never got a chance to do any Broadway, or even off-Broadway. I would love to do that and I haven’t given up on that...on that thought in the future.

SNK: I also read on your web site, and please correct me if I mispronounce this, the Bahá’í faith is showcased. How long have you been a practitioner of that faith and how did you get involved with it?

ELR: I have been Bahá’í since I was 15 and I feel like it sort of found me. You can’t become Bahá’í until you're 15, you can’t be baptized or anything in the Bahá’í faith because they really want you to study all the other religions, and decide that you want to be Bahá’í, that it’s an adult decision, that it’s a choice. In a nutshell, we believe in everybody’s founder of their faith. Everybody's prophet, basically. The word of God, and people have sort of taken it and messed with it enough to make us all, you know, separate, and that was not ever God’s plan. We believe in one mankind, one God and basically one unity.

SNK: I also read in an article you did in a recent issue of Women’s Health Today magazine, about a number of charities that you’re involved with, such as becoming a spokesperson for the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition’s “Break the Silence” campaign. Can you tell me more about your duties with that?

ELR: Yeah, actually tomorrow we’re doing a big event called “Profit Pink.” It’s going to be on ABC. It’s an event for all women’s cancer groups, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, cervical cancer. Joss Stone is performing, Sheryl Crow, and Renee Zellweger is hosting. I’m really excited about the event. It's basically to get the word out, get people to be tested. My grandmother and my great-grandmother both died from ovarian cancer. And ovarian cancer, though it’s not as prevalent as breast cancer, it actually kills more because there’s no test. There’s no easy, quick test you can take to see if you have ovarian cancer. So, it’s the most highly misdiagnosed of the cancers. So, by the time that they find it, your chances of living are only 20 percent. It's called “Profit Pink," and it’s on tomorrow night, I think, and it’s on ABC Sports, I think.

SNK: You also mentioned that you’re involved with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) program, “Learn the Signs, Act Early.” Can you tell me more about your involvement with that program?

ELR: I’m not actively involved with them anymore but we did a really great campaign about learning the signs. It was when the CDC was really trying to get people to know what the signs of autism were, early. But, I just don’t think they’re pushing the campaign as much anymore. But, a friend of mine has two children who are autistic; now they have just found a gene that, not unlike a cystic fibrosis gene, that if it runs in your family, that your chances of having a second child with autism are 40 percent. They are finding that if they can diagnose such a disorder early, like as early as 18 months, that your chances to get your child help, the chances of that child being functional in society are much greater than if you diagnose it at four or five.

SNK: Well, for every disease, early detection is key.

ELR: Exactly.

SNK: In your interview for Bello Magazine, you mentioned that you were chosen to host a documentary about dishonesty in politics in the world’s poorest continent, where HIV and poverty are running rampant. It said you were to interview former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former President Bill Clinton. How did it feel to perform such an important act?

ELR: Oh my God, I was actually paralyzed with fear, totally paralyzed with fear. I thought, I’m from a really small town, I’m just happy to be here on CSI: Miami. Trying to put this documentary together, it seemed overwhelming and yet I learned so much in such a short amount of time. Of course, it’s in the news, all over the news but not enough about the real specifics of what’s going on in Uganda, Darfur, Somalia, and now even Kenya, and even the Diamond mine region. I mean, the level of brutality, and the level of poverty and everybody talks about, you know, we have to take care of our people here at home, and certainly that’s true. Certainly we have to take care of our own, but at the same time, we don’t have the level of poverty that they have there. We don’t have the level of brutality against each other that they have there. It’s not fathomable. So, I did a ridiculously quick study and I’m still learning about it. It really opened up a whole other world that I really didn’t know much about.

SNK: Well, it is good to learn new things about different places. I agree with you about focusing on domestic issues here and how important that is, but at the same time, we also need to focus on the rest of the world, so everybody can be united and the constant violence can come to an end.

ELR: Exactly.

SNK: Do you know if the documentary has aired yet and if so, on what station?

ELR: It will be a very long time before it’s finished. We are kind of catch as catch can with money, and we shoot what we can and then we take a break. Documentaries take like, I’ve heard have taken four to five years. I hope it won’t take us that long, but this particular documentary, specifically, about this brand new computer technology that I’m kind of hoping will eventually be a worldwide...widely used in government...technology that basically tracks every cent of a country’s dollars and everybody has to sign off on it, all along the line, so this battle with other countries to get money. After their debt relief is through, there was a big scandal that millions and millions and millions of dollars had been stolen, so of course, the other countries that had given them debt relief, nobody wants to put any more money back into them. It started to go to hell in a handbasket, and they had actually been doing pretty well with AIDS and getting help to their people and all of a sudden it went to hell. So, this company developed a technology. Uganda was the first government in the world to implement it, and now they have a system of checks and balances, where every penny donated or given when it comes to that country, it’s monitored 24 hours a day so nothing can be absconded with, nothing can be misappropriated. Every major institution that deals with millions of dollars, I think should have to eventually have that implemented into their system. I’m hoping it will be a way of life in 20 years.

SNK: You also mentioned in the article that you were headed for Uganda this past May. What was that experience like?

ELR: We did not get to go. We ended up shooting some other stuff; now we are hoping to go this next May when I’m on hiatus again. All the timing didn’t end up working out, with the money. We’re gonna go over there and get all our shots, our Visas and our stuff. So, now we’re ready for this next May.

SNK: Great. I’m going to switch gears, real quick, if that’s okay with you. I got a chance to listen to your CD, Only You. I absolutely loved it! You have a phenomenal voice and the rhythms and tones on the album made me want to get up and dance and not stop.

ELR: Well, thank you so much!

SNK: Do you have plans to record a second CD anytime soon?

ELR: No, you know, it’s one of those things I always wanted to do. I was really glad that I did it. But, you know ventures of the heart are kind of expensive, but if somebody includes me on their CD, for some reason, which I would love as well...I would sing backup for somebody if they asked me.

SNK: I also saw that you have some motion picture credits under your belt. Do you have any upcoming film roles that you would like to mention?

ELR: Over hiatus, I just finished filming a movie with Samuel Jackson called Lakeview Terrace, and that was awesome. We finished production on that. The awesome thing was that I was so nervous when I saw Samuel Jackson, but he’s a CSI: Miami fan. I was like, “You’re kidding me, I’m a Samuel Jackson fan.”

SNK: Wow, that turned out well.

ELR: It was awesome!

SNK: In closing, I have one more question. As I said before, I’m a huge soap fan and was very sad when you left All My Children. I know your character didn’t have much interaction with Cameron Mathison, who plays “Ryan Lavery.” I read in one of the articles you did, about your love of dancing, and since he’s now doing so well as a cast member on this season’s Dancing with the Stars, I was wondering if you might be following in his footsteps in an upcoming season.

ELR: I don’t know if CBS would let us crossover. But, I would love to. Emily Procter [who plays Calleigh Duquesne on CSI: Miami] and I...Emily, the beautiful blonde girl from CSI, she and I were talking about how we would kill to be able to do it. I watch it religiously, especially now that Cameron’s on there. I’ve been watching it and cheering him on from my couch. Hehe. I’m hoping that I can squeeze a couple of tickets out of him. I would love to do it.

SNK: Well. I know the camera frequently pans the audience and I have seen some soap people and movie stars there in the audience, so I’ll watch for you.

ELR: You know what’s really funny? My mom and Emily’s mom, both, have decided that we’re not ever going to be really big stars unless we do Dancing with the Stars. Both of out mothers have pushed...separately...have been pushing us like, “You really, really have to do Dancing with the Stars cause that’s where the real stars are. That would make you really big. We’re like, “Oh, my God.” They're not gonna let us, but we’re gonna hope.

SNK: That’s all you can do. Okay, is there anything that you wanted to mention that I might have forgotten?

ELR: Well, I’m doing this campaign with Claritin right now and they have the winner. They’ve been doing this “One day with…,” and it was an online campaign that you can enter to win one day with me out here in LA, or one day with Ken Pavis, whose a big celebrity hairstylist, or one day with, oh goodness I’m forgetting who that football player is...but it was with a football player. So, the contest has just ended, and the winner of the contest is going to be coming out and we’re gonna be doing like a day in LA. I think he’s from Illinois so he’s gonna come and hang out. The whole contest was based on Claritin and they found me because I said in an interview somewhere that I had such bad allergies when I moved to New York that I was literally incapacitated. I would be sneezing my brains out and it actually depleted my entire immune system because I would end up getting sick; well sometimes cold and flu symptoms seem like allergies. I had taken all of these different allergy medications and nothing really worked cause, certainly doing the soap, I had to have really clear thinking, and they would make me so foggy and dull that I couldn’t remember any of my lines. So that’s when I found Claritin and that was the only thing I could use that made me really clear. So, it killed my allergies and also kept me really clear thinking, and they had seen somewhere where I said that, and they called and said, “Hey, do you want to do this “One Day with…”? So, I said that would be good as long as they gave me enough Claritin to get me through the allergies. Then, we have a deal.

SNK: Well, if that works for you that’s great. Thank you so much Ms. La Rue for taking the time out of your schedule to talk to me. This has been a real big thrill for me.

ELR: Thank you. It was really nice talking to you and I’m glad you’re an All My Children fan. I miss all my friends over there. I call them all the time and I’m like, “What’s going on? What’s happening?” So, it's really a big family over there and it was great.

SNK: It looks like everybody has a very close relationship on the show. You can tell as you watch the show, the looks that certain people give each other that other people might not notice, that everyone really likes each other.

ELR: Yeah, everybody is really good friends on the set and off. It's nice, I miss them.

SNK: Is there any chance you might make a return visit?

ELR: I told them I would come back for a wedding, a funeral, a christening, the Christmas miracle. They always have the Christmas miracle. I would love if they did that, but I haven’t heard from them. So, I think they’ve given up on me.

SNK: Oh, don’t say that. Well, I will watch for you in the audience on Dancing with the Stars, and thank you again for this. It was truly a pleasure.

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