<p id=”par-1_50″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/actors/”>Actor</a> Eva Mendes <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/jessica-alba-wasnt-sure-eva-mendes-compared-minorirty-a-listers.html/”>became an A-lister</a> thanks to starring in a few hit movies. But she’s no stranger to television, either. After her film career took off, there was one point where Mendes was interested in returning to the small screen. But things didn’t go as planned for the star.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-eva-mendes-revisited-her-disastrous-pitch-meeting-for-this-television-show”>Eva Mendes revisited her disastrous pitch meeting for this television show</h2>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-1″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Television-shows-eva-mendes.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”Eva Mendes attends the New York and Company spring 2014 collection Pop Up Store launch party while wearing a white and black dress.” class=”wp-image-3763259″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Eva Mendes | Tommaso Boddi/WireImage</figcaption></figure>
<p id=”par-2_48″>Before making her big leap onto the big screen, Mendes had quite a few TV credits to her name. Some of her past television projects included <em>ER</em>, <em>Mortal Kombat Conquest</em>, and Pamela Anderson’s 1999 series <em>V.I.P</em>. But Mendes only had small roles in some of these memorable shows.</p>
<p id=”par-3_59″>After her star-power increased, however, the <em>Hitch </em>star had the opportunity to star in her own television series. Mendes hoped this new role would provide another alternative to the more stereotypical parts she felt Latina actors were being offered at the time. One of the reasons why Mendes became a producer was to open more doors for her community.</p>
<p id=”par-4_66″>“It’s more of like, when I read a script, and there’s a great female character and I’m wondering why it’s not being made, I think, if I can help I’ll attach my name, make some calls, and send some letters. That’s what producing is for me. It’s not for some extra-credit or anything. It’s to get these stories told,” she once said according to <a href=”https://www.blackfilm.com/20071012/features/evamendes2.shtml”>Black Film</a>.</p>
<p id=”par-5_28″>She took steps towards her goal with a television show she planned. But she found quickly that pitching television shows to studio executives could be a painful process.</p>
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<p id=”par-6_67″>“There a couple of stories that I’m dying to tell, and have just been hard to get off the ground. I thought acting was difficult, try producing and selling. I just tried to sell a show and did pitch meetings for the first time. And I was like, ‘That was the worst week ever!’ It was so hard. It was just awful. It’s just terrible,” she said.</p>
<p id=”par-7_24″>But she clarified that the worst part about the pitch meeting wasn’t the studio executives, who all seemed to give Mendes a warm greeting.</p>
<p id=”par-8_83″>“They were really nice, they laughed and all. But it’s very hard to keep your integrity when you’re saying something like ‘Please buy this just because I like it.’ It was very strange; I never want to go begging of course,” Mendes said. “And when they don’t get it, all you can say is how can you not get it? I do a lot of that in my acting, but it just seems a little less obvious. Do you know what I mean?”</p>
<p id=”par-9_57″>Mendes has become very selective with her projects after having kids, even choosing not to do <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/eva-mendes-doesnt-want-anymore-dark-movies-kids.html/”>any more dark movies</a>. Although she hasn’t starred in too many movies or shows to take care of her family, she did return to the small screen in 2021. She did a voice role in the animated preschool television series <em>Bluey</em>.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-what-was-eva-mendes-show-about”>What was Eva Mendes’ show about?</h2>
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<p id=”par-10_17″>Mendes gave further insight into what the television series would’ve been about if it was picked up.</p>
<p id=”par-11_96″>“I’m so over pitching. But anyway, it’s about a Los Angeles mayor, a Mexican-American guy, who has a daughter,” she explained. “He moved into the mayor’s mansion and, because he lost his wife in a car accident a few years back, he moves his mother in with him. And she becomes the first-lady mayor. And of course there are so many other great mayor characters, that interact with everybody. And you have the mom who is totally old school who says. ‘Why can’t we do it this way?’ Or ‘Why can’t we do it that way?’”</p>
<p id=”par-12_38″>The show’s tone would lean towards the sitcoms that <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/eva-mendes-shared-let-body-please-ghost-rider-fans.html/”>the <em>Ghost Rider </em>actor</a> admired. But she believed changes in television culture were the real reason the show didn’t get picked up rather than the quality of its premise.</p>
<p id=”par-13_99″>“When I see shows like <em>All in the Family</em> and <em>Good Times</em>, I wonder why we don’t have shows like that anymore? I was watching <em>Good Times</em> the other night on Nick at Nite and it was hysterical, of course,” she said. “They were talking about socio-political issues that were so deep, and still relevant to this day. Where are those shows today? I just don’t understand. Right now they’re all wanting another <em>Supernatural</em>. But where are those shows that are hysterical, but are also talking about the socio-political things that are going on? So that’s my big rant.”</p>