Eva LaRue (CSI: Miami, All My Children) sits down with Steve Kmetko for a powerful, wide-ranging conversation about her rise from daytime soaps to a global primetime hit, Latina representation in Hollywood, and the 12-year stalking ordeal that led to a precedent-setting FBI case using forensic genealogy. Eva also previews her Paramount+ docuseries, “My Nightmare Stalker: The Eva LaRue Story,” and shares career lessons, motherhood insights, and behind-the-scenes memories (yes, David Caruso stories included). In this episode: From child commercials to All My Children’s Maria Santos—finding a fanbase that changed everything Soap vs. procedural: 75 pages/day vs. 8–9 pages/day…and the “science-speak” of CSI Latina visibility: the pre-Desperate Housewives era and breaking through The 12-year stalking case, FBI involvement, and how forensic genealogy helped crack it The upcoming Paramount+ docuseries and why telling the story matters Career “no’s,” resilience, lighting lessons from John Callahan, and balancing life/work Fun bits: set vibes, no-prank policy, and Steve’s true-crime brush with John Wayne Gacy
#EvaLaRue #CSIMiami #AllMyChildren #TrueCrime #ForensicGenealogy #ParamountPlus #MyNightmareStalker #LatinaInHollywood #SoapOperas #HollywoodStories #SteveKmetko #StillHereHollywood
Steve Kmetko
Yes, I'm still here Hollywood. Coming up on today's episode, she went from daytime drama to one of the biggest primetime franchises in the world, winning over millions of viewers along the way. Audiences know her as a scientist solving crimes in Miami, but her journey in Hollywood has been about much more than the role she's played. It's a story of resilience, representation, reinvention and protection of her daughter and herself. This is still here Hollywood. I'm Steve kometko. Join me with today's guest from CSI Miami and so many soaps. Actor, Eva LaRue. Eva,
Steve Kmetko
what first drew you to acting and
Steve Kmetko
how did it all get started? When did you realize it could be a career? It
Eva LaRue
could be i Well, I started when I was about six, doing my first commercials. I had my mom had put me in this little local beauty pageant and and I was first runner up. And I remember at that very moment being so disappointed with myself. Isn't that crazy? I was six, and I was like, There's a picture of me standing on the stage with the winner and me next to her, and I have my flowers up over half of my face, because I was like, I will not smile. I have not won. So I had that sort of competitive spirit, which has has gotten me a long way through this career, as frustrating as it can be because of the rejection factor, you know, in this industry, but I did my first commercials when I was a kid, and then really got into musical theater, and I was a big sing and dance fan, and thought for a while maybe I wanted to be a ballerina, and then I
Eva LaRue
I got graduated from high school, I didn't end up going to college,
Eva LaRue
which I do regret, because it would have given me this lovely little buffer before life hit. But, but no, it was. It was kind of great that I just jumped right into what I wanted to do and what I loved doing and and got my my first kind of break on the new candy camera with Dom DeLuise, and then the soap opera, Santa Barbara, and then all my children, which really kicked everything off, was
Steve Kmetko
that what really made you realize it's taking hold? Yeah, I
Eva LaRue
think I realized it was taking hold when I just couldn't get enough of it in junior high and high school, just being on stage, even though I hadn't done really anything other than commercials. I didn't imagine myself doing anything else. And one of my uncles asked me one time, he was like, you know, you have to have a backup plan. This is all fun and games, and you're, you're, you're, you know, you're great on stage, but you know, you have to have a backup plan. And I went home thinking, that's a dumb idea. Why would I have a backup plan? That would mean I'd fall back on the backup plan.
Steve Kmetko
That's what, you know, what? When you said that, I was watching a documentary about A Chorus Line, because it just celebrated, what, 50 years, or something. And one of the women, young women, they interviewed, said, You know, everybody says you have to have a backup plan, but I have, I'm of this opinion that if you have a backup plan, you're going to fall into it, you know, you're going
Eva LaRue
to fall back on that. I didn't want any I didn't want a net, you know, I was either going to make it or not. That was but that's also sort of the way I grew up. It was a little bit scrappy, and we were broke, and we were on welfare and we were so it wasn't a matter of of there wasn't a choice. So I think when you when you don't have a choice, you don't choose the other choice. You just, what
Steve Kmetko
do you think you would have done had this not
Eva LaRue
come to fruition? Married? Well, I don't know,
Steve Kmetko
always a good solution
Eva LaRue
gone down the more of the beauty pageant round. I
Steve Kmetko
don't know you did some modeling before acting right a little bit. Yeah, I was short. Don't look short. Thank you. What was that transition like? Was there a transition?
Eva LaRue
No, because I really didn't do a lot of modeling because I was short. So I did. I'm only five seven, so I did some swimsuit modeling, and I did some catalog modeling, but not a lot. I never that was that was never my, my forte, I don't think
Steve Kmetko
how has you been able to measure the difference between doing a daily soap opera as opposed to CSI? Yeah, is there a big
Eva LaRue
difference? There's a huge difference in doing daytime soap operas and nighttime TV, because doing a soap opera can be it can be 75 pages a day of dialog, 75 pages to memorize, and if you have a heavy storyline. That's four, sometimes five days a week, usually on a soap opera, you're working like three days a week on average. But if you have a big storyline, it can be four or five days a week, and sometimes shooting three shows in a day, sometimes four, if they're trying to bank up shows so that we can go be on Christmas break or, you know, summer break or something like that. So it is mind numbingly hard to do on it. Conversely, with a nighttime show, like a procedural like CSM Miami, we're shooting maybe nine pages in a day. That's a heavy day. Nine pages, well, we'll never finish it. Oh my god. It's usually like a seven and a half eight page day. So although on CSI Miami, we had all of this scientific speak, so it was like trying to learn how to speak a different language sometimes, which I thought was difficult in its own way.
Steve Kmetko
But do they have any prompters or no cue cards or anything?
Eva LaRue
No, I've heard that some soaps do. I have never worked on one that did. But no, you're flying. You really are without a rope or a
Steve Kmetko
net. Was it good experience for you?
Eva LaRue
Oh yeah, I think starting off in soap operas is the most phenomenal training ground for any actor. And I always say that with the amount of work that we have to do in that short amount of time with no rehearsal, barely any rehearsal time, I would love to see any of the top notch 1% stars try to pull off the same acting quality with that Little rehearsal time and that much, that much material.
Steve Kmetko
Because I think, generally speaking, there are some people who look down their nose
Eva LaRue
at a lot of people look down their nose. I mean, soap operas have been looked down on for the longest time because they're melodramatic and they're, you know, they're all the and unfortunately, they haven't come up to speed with the shooting technology that every other show on the planet now has. So it looks antiquated, but there's still stories that are being told there that the fans want to hear, that generations of fans want to watch. And there's a comfort in watching the same people every day, year after year, generation after generation. So I love that about it. I
Steve Kmetko
was a big Days of Our Lives, family. I was too in college, rush home to see it in the afternoon.
Eva LaRue
And I was one of those. I was, I think I was an anomaly, well, a small where I would switch channels because you either you were an ABC person, a CBS person or an NBC person for your soaps, right? So you were young and the restless, bold and the beautiful, whatever else was on CBS. Or you were all My children, one life to live, General Hospital. Or you were Days of Our Lives, another world. What was it? You've got this down. There used to be 15 soaps. Now there's only four. Isn't that heartbreaking? When I got in the business, there were 15 soaps on the air,
Steve Kmetko
plenty to choose from. Yeah. What do you consider your big break? All My Children, all my children. Yeah, how come?
Eva LaRue
Because that gave me an opportunity to really gain this beautiful fan base that had existed long before I ever got there and really welcomed me. And it was a it was a wonderful safe place to really learn my craft. And I met my my daughter's father there my ex husband, I have phenomenal friends that are still kind of like I they're kind of my college friends because we, none of us went, so that was our college and we're all still really great friends to this day. And also, I wouldn't have gotten CSI Miami if I hadn't been on all my children, because when I left, when I left, all my children, our executive producer, Anne Donahue from CSI Miami, was an all my children fan, and she loved my character, so out of like 300 people, I ended up getting the job at CSI Miami.
Steve Kmetko
So that's how that came about. That's how that came about. Yeah. Did you ever imagine the CSI universe would become such a global phenomenon.
Eva LaRue
No, who knew? I mean, the first one did incredibly well, but the CSI Miami surpassed it and ended up being like the number one show in the world for a
Steve Kmetko
while. There how many CSIS are there?
Eva LaRue
There were three. There was CSI Vegas, CSI Miami, CSI New York. And then there are nciss, I don't know how many. Oh, and then I think they ended up, after we were all the first three were off the air. There was a CSI, New Orleans,
Steve Kmetko
I thought so I remembered a New Orleans, yeah. And isn't there a Hawaii?
Eva LaRue
Now there might be, Oh, no.
Steve Kmetko
Do fans approach you with CSI style questions?
Eva LaRue
No, but a Canadian police officer told me the most phenomenal story. He came up, I was in an airport, and he went to me, he said, I just have to tell you, we used CSI as as a way of catching a murderer. So we ended up he was in. We'd been interrogating him for hours. He wouldn't break, he wouldn't have and he said, we finally came in. He said, I came in and I sat down and I said, Have you ever seen CSI Miami? And he was like, yeah. And he was like, well, so you know, we have a technology that when we check the last thing that our victim saw, it will be emblazoned in his pupils. We will be able to see the last thing he saw. Are we going to see you? Because we're doing that right now. And he was like, Well, yeah, she completely broke because you thought that somebody was going to actually be able to, like, clip the lens of the victim and see what? So they completely snowed this dude into a confession.
Steve Kmetko
Well, congratulations, yeah. How did, how did the character Maria Santos affect your career so far?
Eva LaRue
Well, that was, like I said, Maria Santos got me CSI Miami, and a lot of other you know, and a ton of lovely lifetime and Hallmark movies. And because it's that same, it's that same demographic that, you know, lifetime and Hallmark and oddly enough, true crime, it's that same 18 to 54 year old woman who is a true crime fan. So which
Steve Kmetko
is who they're looking for the sponsors, 18 to 54 Yes, 18
Eva LaRue
to 54 we're the shoppers.
Steve Kmetko
Back with more in a moment. If you'd like to be more involved with us at still here Hollywood, you definitely can just visit patreon.com/still here Hollywood. You can support us for as little as $3 a month. You can get our episodes a day before they post anywhere else, you can see what guests will be coming up and submit questions for them. You can even tell us what stars you want us to have on as guests. You'll see what goes on before and after the episode, plus exclusive behind the scenes, info, pics, video and more. Again, that's patreon.com/still here Hollywood, you and your daughter endured? Was it 12 years of dealing with a relentless stalker? We did? Yes, tell me about that. How did that all happen? So
Eva LaRue
the second year I was entering my second year of being on CSI Miami and and I got my first letter, and it initially came to my manager, and no, we didn't know what. We just thought it was maybe a one off at first, the letters were from an anonymous person in Ohio, because that's where the letters were stamped from, and they just detailed, in the most grotesque, sickening, disturbing way, how he was going to kidnap me, hold me as a sex slave, and then, and then, dismember me. And then, a couple of years later, the letters started coming to me and my daughter, who was it started when she was six, and I think she was about eight, when letters started coming, including her too. And then they even it escalated to the point where, when I got married, the letters were coming to my ex husband. It was the letter. There were hundreds of letters over the course of 1212, years. And the crazy thing was, I was playing a DNA expert on CSI Miami, and we were pretending to have all of this technology that we didn't really have in real life. So in real life, the FBI couldn't solve my case for 12 years, but on CSI Miami, we would have solved that case in 43 minutes, not including commercials.
Steve Kmetko
So were they handwritten letters? They
Eva LaRue
were handwritten letters, and there was so much DNA all over them. There was fingerprints all over them because he was licking the letters and his fingers were on the fingerprints on the stamps back when you licked them and didn't have just the self adhesive. But we cut to there's all kinds of in the docuseries. There's all kinds of things that happened in between. But cut to the two FBI agents who had helped solve the Golden State killer case, which was a 43 year. Year old, cold case with more than 5000 suspects and these two FBI agents. Now, I don't know if you know this, because I didn't know this. FBI is jurisdiction is not murder. Murder doesn't fall under FBI jurisdiction. That's local law enforcement. I didn't know that isn't that interesting. Now, if murder happens to be part of a RICO case, or some sort of tax Eva, or some, you know, or terrorism, something, then, yes, but they don't go after murderers. But these two FBI agents were fascinated with why this case had never been solved. So they kind of, on a weekend, called up Paul holes in San Francisco, who was the detective on Golden State killer case for all these 43 years, and said, Is there any, are there any resources that we can provide that would help you? How can we help you, just because we're fascinated with the case, not because we're allowed to take it on being FBI. So they formed this ragtag sort of group of six people who ended up creating a brand new DNA technology that solved the Golden State killer case. Because at that point, 12 years after my stalker started, there was this new these new entities called 23andme and ancestry.com and gedmatch. Up until that point, the only DNA database in the world was CODIS, which is the national database for for all DNA, but it only included people. But you and I are not in that database. We've never been arrested and accused of a sexual crime or murder or whatever that would be, the only reason that the government would have our DNA right. So my guy was evading capture because he didn't have any prior reason to be DNA swabbed. But then all of a sudden, with GED match and 23andme and all this new technology, they were able to reverse engineer use this by putting the DNA that they had from the Golden State killer, upload it into these different entities. And then check the box that says, We want to be public. And then you're going to find a fifth cousin somewhere. And then you start working down the genealogy tree and getting rid of the branches until you find the person, the family members that live in the area where you think these crimes happened, and that's how they ended up solving Golden State killer. But the FBI said to them, this was a one off. You did this on your weekends, just because you were a fan of the case, like, you know, this is not a replicable technology. And they said, Well, give us another case that has a lot of DNA. And mine was the very next case. So my case ended up being a precedent setting case for the FBI was the first time they ever prosecuted and and got a conviction using the brand new forensics, genealogy.
Steve Kmetko
Did they put did you all put your heads together? Did they give you an idea or a roadmap to follow, how to behave or when to contact them, or what to save or what to look for
Eva LaRue
no they when it all first happened, it was such a free for all. There was no information. There was no as a matter of fact, I was living in Glendale, and I went to the Glendale police department and they and I said, this is what's happening. I'm getting these letters. And they said, Oh yeah, well, there's nothing we can do unless he's been on your property, or has broken into your house, or has actually laid hands on you. So there's nothing we could and plus, we didn't know what his name was. We had no idea who he was, or what he looked like, or where he was, you know, if he was here, but all the letters kept saying, I'm around the corner. I can see you. I'm watching you. I'm seeing you. Drive your everything was I'm around I'm outside the studio. I'm, you know, waiting for you.
Steve Kmetko
How creepy was that? No, it's not
Eva LaRue
just creepy. It's absolute psychological torture. It is. It's torture you can't imagine living in that kind of fear on a daily basis for years, and especially when your child comes into play, and that's, you know, it's the one job you have is to protect your baby girl. So the Glendale police department, unfortunately didn't even make me aware that there was a special Crimes Unit for stalking in Los Angeles. So what I've learned hence is that every first responder you know, even law enforcement, they don't all, they're not all trained in the same awareness and and help. So luckily, our technical advisor, who had been LA County homicide department chief for 25 years, and now he had been retired and was working as our technical advisor on CSI Miami. He put me in touch with FBI because it fell under FBI jurisdiction that I was being stalked and and threatened with death by mail. And mail falls under FBI jurisdiction, so I just lucked.
Steve Kmetko
Out there. It's, I can't imagine, but
Eva LaRue
they would just come pick up the letters. There was nothing they could do either, nothing more than that. I would just call every time the letters came in, and they'd say, pick them up with tweezers, put them in a plastic baggie, and they'd come and pick them up. I was like, Hi guys, you know, like, literally, can I make you a cup of coffee? Exactly? Yeah, we'd meet up for dinner or lunch or whatever, a couple of times a year, and they'd update me on the case, which was, you know, how
Steve Kmetko
long did this take?
Eva LaRue
12 years, 12 years, 12 years before they caught him. Then he only got three and a half years. He's already out, and he has three and a half years of probation and a restraining order. But yeah,
Steve Kmetko
and this inspired you to do a series of your own, correct, well, Docu series.
Eva LaRue
Yeah, it inspired me. I really wanted to do the scripted version of this and and then it ended up being better to do the Docu series, and Paramount plus is I'm partnering with Paramount plus, and they are releasing it on November 13 this year. So I'm really excited for it to come full circle and just really show stalking is kind of this silent crime. It's this crimeless crime, because the crime hasn't happened yet. Do you know what I mean? So in the 12 years, you stop talking about it because you don't want to sound like the girl who cried wolf. And yet the statistic is 86% of female homicides, their killer stalked them first. 86% were stalked first before killed. So there has to be more recognition of stalking rather than, Oh, but nothing's happening. Go away. It'll go away. It doesn't go away. Obsession and that sort of, that kind of crazy, that kind of mental health debilitation, is not going to go away or help itself. It's going to get worse. It escalates, and it escalates to murder in 86% of the cases. So that's scary number. Oh, and let me give you this number, okay, 13 point 5 million people a year in the United States alone are stalked because there's myriad ways to be stalked now, right? Not just in person or by letter, but on social media. And they can get you in every social media. They can find your phone number, they can find your address, they can find all the things now, so very dangerous. Are
Steve Kmetko
you concerned at all that when this goes on to Paramount, plus it might spur him or others, of course, because there's been all kinds of there's been movies called copycat, yeah,
Eva LaRue
of course, yeah. We were, we're very, very the whole thing has been scary. I don't know if it could be more scared. So we decided to tell our story. We lived in 12 years of fear, absolute fear. It didn't make sense to not tell it now and but I see why people don't I see why other celebrities don't come forward. I see why other people don't talk about it. Because you're really hoping that it's just a chapter that goes away, right? You just want it to stop, because it's this drip, drip, drip of psychological destruction.
Steve Kmetko
Have you had a conversation with your daughter about what to look for?
Eva LaRue
Oh, yeah, those conversations happened at six without her ever knowing what was in the letters. She didn't know what was in the letters, really, until we went to federal court and and that's that's kind of when. And then she never heard the messages he left on her high school attendance office, pretending to be her dad, and then the subsequent 19 messages he left detailing all the absolutely sickening things from his letters he left on her school answering machine. So when we were working on putting together the the trailer, and this is, well, this is a real first and then the trailer, those messages and his actual voice are part of those, and we had not really heard them before. Our team was cutting it all together, and they found that, and so when we watched the trailer for the first time, we actually had to stop Stop it, because we were so shocked by hearing the actual voice saying the actual things. And that was 14 years
Steve Kmetko
later. Will that be part of the Docu series? Of course, his voice, we'll hear him.
Eva LaRue
Yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot, but I'm really, really, really proud of the way the whole thing came together and it. Yeah, my friends and family and their story and their perspective and their fear around it, and my two FBI agents were just heroes, just absolute heroes. They literally came in in the nick of time. They you have to watch. But there is a point where literally in the nick of
Steve Kmetko
time. And you said November 13 is the date? This is, yes, sir,
Eva LaRue
November 13. Okay,
Steve Kmetko
very interesting. Is that what it's called My Nightmare
Eva LaRue
stalker. My Nightmare stalker, the evil LaRue story,
Steve Kmetko
any possibility that this will continue or or spin off into a, I can't say the
Eva LaRue
scripted, the scripted based on true stories. Yeah, that's gonna happen. It's looking like, Yeah,
Steve Kmetko
well, hmm. It's fascinating to me.
Eva LaRue
Are you a true Are you a true crime guy or no?
Steve Kmetko
Well, you know what? I had some experience. We'll be back in a moment.
Eva LaRue
You're not in the demographic. You're not in the 18 to 54 year old woman. But there are guys who like true crime too.
Steve Kmetko
Yeah, yeah. Well, no, I'm interested, because I mentioned the movie copycat, and that was it with Sigourney Weaver. I happened it was on television. I happened to watch it again, but originally I saw it in the theater, and I interviewed her as a result, and one of the people that they kind of stole ideas from for the script was John Wayne Gacy, the mass murderer in Chicago, who I knew, get out no and I remember telling Sigourney about that when I was interviewing her, and she had a million questions for me. Well, you know this, that this, that did you know him? Well, he was a contractor who did a lot of repairs, small repairs, things like that. Worked in suburban Chicago, and he was, he was hired to remodel the drugstore I worked at because I was a delivery boy before I got into television. And he would, we would allow him in. We would unlock the door. At night, he would come in with his young male staff, and they would take over the drugstore for the night, and we would let him out in the morning. Well, you know, he asked me to have dinner with him several times, and he gave me the creeps to tell you the truth. Wow. And well, this is about you, not not about me, but nevertheless, no, there's a good story. I was, at the time he was arrested. I was, by this time in television in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and he was, it was right around Christmas time that he was arrested. And I saw the video on television. I was watching our newscast, and, you know, he was brought in like this. You couldn't see his face or anything. And we never called him John Wayne Gacy. We always just called him John.
Eva LaRue
Yeah, that's John. Like, I don't know that dude's middle name.
Steve Kmetko
So when I went I remember, I watched it on the news, and I went into work the next day, and at the station I worked at in Green Bay, we we got the Chicago Tribune, and there on the front page of the tribune was his mugshot, and I was like, Oh, my God, it's him. And I called my old boss, who I hadn't worked in worked for in five or six years, and I said, Bernie. And Bernie recognized my voice, and he said, it's him, my God, yes, it's just that close. Yeah, it's fascinating to me. And one of his victims worked at a drugstore. And you know, the police work showed that he would offer these kids to get them, to lure them into his car, or whatever pills drugs. And I'm certain it's my theory, that if you let him into a drugstore overnight and lock the doors, yeah, he has access to everything. And it was not at that particular point in time, in the 70s, people were very trusting, and the drugs were not locked up like they are today, yeah. So it was, it's, it's fascinating to me, this kind of stuff, you know, that's a close brush. It was, and he just gave me the creeps. Anyway, you've starred in so many shows over the years. Which set has had the most welcoming atmosphere for you?
Eva LaRue
Well, all my children in CSI. CSI had already been going on for for two years when I got there. And so I thought, Oh, this could be, you know, they may not be as welcoming because they already have their, you know, little group, pretty solidified. But I came in and they were so lovely and welcoming and just a really, even though. You'd think, because it's got a dark bent to it procedurals do. It was a very light, very fun, very funny cast. And so it was, it was really a lovely and we were like a family over there, but also all My children, you know, I started there when I was 24 and we were all right around the same, you know, within about a five year range. And so we, like grew, I felt like we grew up in New York together. There. You know what I mean? We had our our 20s and our, I don't know, it was just such a really formative time, I think, in all of our lives. And that's a really great family
Steve Kmetko
as a Latina actress, did you encounter any barriers that others in Hollywood might not have had to face?
Eva LaRue
Yeah, yeah, a lot. It wasn't. It wasn't in to be Latina in Hollywood until I think Eva Longoria got Desperate Housewives, and that was the first time that we really had a Latina woman get all kinds of attention and publicity. And all of a sudden it was, get yourself a Latina girl. And then we had Sofia Vergara was then suddenly cast on Modern Family. And then it became you know, but before that, all, you know, into my 30s, yeah, it was really tough. Thank God there was all My children, because ours was the first Latina family on daytime TV, the Santos family, me and Mark Consuelos and Sidney Penny and and then, and then at CSI Miami, when I was then, in my 30s, and I got, I got cast over there, which was awesome.
Steve Kmetko
Mark Consuelos has done okay for himself. Doing okay. We usually say, you know, that sounds like the kind of comment you'd make about a woman marrying well, but he married well. He did pretty well for himself.
Eva LaRue
He did, but he also made it. You know, they met on all my children, and, you know, he's always been an actor, and doing his he's also an incredible architect. He's done a lot of their their building and interiors and stuff for their homes and and so he's and now together on the show, they're fantastic. So
Steve Kmetko
when you look down the road of your career, what do you see?
Eva LaRue
I see the scripted version of this series. I'm an executive producer on the documentary, and I would really, I'm really loving that foray into producing. And so the the right now I'm writing and creating the scripted version of it, and so that's where I'd like to see this story go.
Steve Kmetko
What's the best career advice you've ever been given?
Eva LaRue
It wasn't have a backup plan, that's for sure.
Eva LaRue
I think it would have to be from my ex husband, who's now passed, who is still my great friend, and my my daughter, Kaya, his dad, John Callahan. And it was mostly about lighting. He was about, he was always, he would always say, Get out of my light. LaRue. And so I've become very aware of other people's light, and you don't want to, and I think this works across the board in life. Don't diminish other people's light. Don't come onto a set with all of your negative, bad temper and whatever, and ruin other people's days, just we're all there to work and do a good job and do the bet. And there's so much insecurity in this business there is that people will take it out on everybody around them, so don't stand in other people's light.
Steve Kmetko
Good advice, can I ask you, what was the toughest no you ever got?
Steve Kmetko
Maybe there haven't been any,
Eva LaRue
there have been a lot of no's. But, you know, because that's how the industry rolls, I think the biggest no that's been the hardest to take is when CSI ended, and there's been, there was, like, a long, bunch of years where I just was not working. And so I think when you're on a successful show for a long period of time, there's always this no that happens directly after, maybe because people are just sick of seeing you and you know, and now they're interested in new blood and new whatever, new stardom. And so you get when you think of all the big TV shows that have ever come and gone. A lot of those actors don't show up again for a bunch of years, if at all, you know. And so I think that's that was the hardest no was from the whole industry. I felt like there was a there was a no period.
Steve Kmetko
Was there a period when you thought that might not end?
Eva LaRue
Yeah, there was. Appeared when I thought, maybe I didn't need to have a fallback plan. It's not too late to write things down being tenacious, though, it's just about being tenacious and it and it was actually beautiful, because it gave me all that time to be with my daughter while she was going through junior high and high school. And you cannot get that time back. And I would not give up. I wouldn't I wouldn't go back to work during that time for anything.
Steve Kmetko
Now, you have experience from which to speak. Do any young people ever come up to you, or do you ever speak to classes or anything where they ask you what to do, or what advice you have
Eva LaRue
every, every once in a while, but you people used to ask more about 1015, years ago. Now, I don't think anybody asks because I think that they there's so many venues in which to be a celebrity. You know, there's Tik Tok, and there's YouTube, and there's Instagram, and there's there's this whole other celebrity. There's only fans, you know what I mean. There's this whole other celebrity going on that I don't think people ask anymore, because they're finding their own way to it, and there's just no one way anyway. So even when people would ask me, there's just no one way. So, you know, you can do the start at the basics, with the basics, which is, you know, call Screen Actors Guild and have them send you the little booklet that they have of all of the agents that are franchised by the guild, all the legit agencies, and then you can start blanketing them with headshots and resumes and a follow up call and see if anybody's you know interested. And other than that, you want to do as many you know plays and get as much stage experience as you possibly can. And trial and error. It's all trial and error, and you just never know where it's going to have. I did a lot of extra work in high school during the summer. That was, you know, my summer job, and just being on set, seeing how it all runs, that's really important seeing, you know, then maybe you end up getting to be a stand in for somebody. Maybe you end up getting, you know, our big thing was we couldn't wait to get our little under five, if we could have like, two or three sentences, then maybe we get our sag card, but, but I got lucky and got a an agent pretty young, and because I had done commercials when I was a kid, so I already had my sag card, I lucked into that early. So it happens for everybody in a different way.
Steve Kmetko
But we'll be back for more in a moment. What about AI? Are you concerned at all about AI?
Eva LaRue
I think everybody should be concerned with AI. I don't think I'm not concerned with AI taking over actors places, because
Steve Kmetko
what frightens me or alerts me sometimes is when I when I'm playing on the internet, which I spend too much time doing
Eva LaRue
what I don't know what you mean,
Steve Kmetko
I see these things come up. They had today I came across one where Queen Elizabeth was was checking out people at a grocery store. Oh,
Eva LaRue
they've got this whole new it looks so real. Yeah, Queen Elizabeth thing, I just saw one too, where she was wearing Nikes or something. Yeah, they're like, yeah, that's all a little bit scary. And I don't know if there's any rules or laws in play. There are some, right?
Steve Kmetko
I know. I know sag and after we're trying to do alert people as to safeguards, things that they can watch for or not accept, or companies not to work for. I don't know. It's just, I find it pretty scary.
Eva LaRue
Yeah, I just, I don't think we're ever, I hope, I don't think that an audience is ever going to watch a go and pay however much it is now, God, what was it like last night? We went to the movies, and I think it was, was like $18 a day or something ridiculous. Yeah, nobody's gonna pay to go watch fake people be in a movie. Like, I still love my actors, my specific actors. I go because I want to see what phenomenal thing they're doing. I don't want to go watch an AI human I'm not going to pay money to go watch any I can watch AI on, you know, my computer. They've got them all over now. They've got some models and stuff that are actually making millions of dollars for their creators, right on Instagram and tick tock.
Steve Kmetko
Ridiculous. Seems silly. Learn how to be a computer programmer. Yeah. What did you go see? Do you remember?
Eva LaRue
Yeah, we just saw one battle after another. Oh, did you see it? Yeah, yeah, it's the Leo DiCaprio movie.
Steve Kmetko
The movie I want to see right now is Sean Penn. Oh, my. Out. He's phenomenal. Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Eva LaRue
Oh, I want to see that. And I want to see a beautiful journey, the one with Margot, Robbie and
Steve Kmetko
Colin Farrell. Colin
Eva LaRue
Farrell, yeah, yeah. Cuz that looks really sweet. It does.
Steve Kmetko
It's hard to keep up with everything. Yeah,
Eva LaRue
long, yeah, yeah. But it's great. It's great.
Steve Kmetko
It's great. Did you feel, did you have any pressure? Did you feel early in your career to fit a certain mold?
Eva LaRue
No, because there was no mold for me. There wasn't a lot of Latina girls in the business.
Steve Kmetko
Didn't you feel a need to fit in in some way?
Eva LaRue
No, because I was also one of the only brown kids at my high school. So I didn't I. I fit in where I fit in, you know, in a lot, in a lot of different groups. I luckily had great friends. We're all still really great friends. Got a group of about 1520 people from high school that are literally going to a barbecue next weekend, and we'll all be there. So I love that I've got home. You know,
Steve Kmetko
I was one of the only gay kids in my school. Were you Yes? Were you out? No, but that didn't keep people from calling me names, really, oh yeah. You know, they they recognize a lisp when they hear one. So it's, yeah, it's interesting, what personal challenges have made you stronger in Hollywood,
Eva LaRue
I think, growing up, you know, being being different, and in the area that I grew up in, which is a cowboy town, and growing up really broke and poor, and having a car that literally would stall out every time I was making a left hand turn and stuck in the middle of like, character building, my friend, character building
Steve Kmetko
in an intersection. It always happens.
Eva LaRue
Always an intersection. Yeah.
Steve Kmetko
Has there ever been a role that you've turned down that later you wish you hadn't.
Eva LaRue
Yes, well, it wasn't. I didn't turn it down. I, I don't know why, but I read the script for Mystic Pizza and the audition. I don't know if they were just in town and renting some little place to do their casting or what it was, but it seemed janky because it was a little low budget,
Steve Kmetko
like janky. Janky. Yeah,
Eva LaRue
sus suspect
Steve Kmetko
that I heard just today on the radio, sus I learned what Susie
Eva LaRue
suspect because it was a low budget it was little low budget movie. And the only low budget movies being done, really, at that time was 30 years ago now were like those, like, see movie, or somebody was going to end up topless. Somebody was going to end up running topless. I don't know it. I so I didn't end up going on the audition. But you know what? It was meant to launch Julia Roberts, that was it? Sure that was her out of a cannon, out of a cannon. Yeah, of course.
Steve Kmetko
I think it would have happened anyway. Yeah, it would happen. Balancing a public career with a private life isn't easy. How have you juggled that
Eva LaRue
the public career and private life? Luckily, I've only had, like, a modicum of fame, so I can't imagine being one of the top 1% not being able to go to the grocery store yourself, or, you know, not being able to go out without security or something like that. You know, I've people will come up every once in a while and say, oh my god, loves you on all my children, or CSI, or whatever, but, but it's always in a lovely way. It's always really positive. It's always been a super positive experience, until the stalker.
Steve Kmetko
Was there a time when you had to go out with security. Because,
Eva LaRue
yeah, we, I always had security on set, and when we were out on location, had security at my house. I had, yeah, we had a lot of
Steve Kmetko
when I assume you were in court, when this monster, monster, there you go. Thanks. Was there as well?
Eva LaRue
No, thank God. He was in Ohio. He was apprehended in Ohio, and they had him be in court via big zoom, you know, monitor we had specified to the court beforehand that we did not want to be present if they were going to be flying him out, which never made sense to me. Why would they use taxpayer dollars to fly this dude to California? He'd never been to California. We didn't know he'd never been to California because he was always saying he was around the corner and he was standing. But they were going to fly him there to be in court, to and then, and then what? And was somebody going to they couldn't give us any answers about was somebody watching him? Was he being held in what was happening? So we just said, we we're not going to be in court if, if he's physically, if he's going to be in court. And then, so thankfully, they decided to just put him up on a big TV screen. I can't
Steve Kmetko
imagine what that would have been like. Yeah, it was.
Eva LaRue
I think maybe the worst part was him giving his statement and saying that he wished he'd been caught earlier. And we're like us too.
Steve Kmetko
Did you say why he wished he'd been caught earlier. He
Eva LaRue
said, you know, that he'd had a lot of he didn't realize sleepless nights. Yeah, sleep. He was bored. I don't know. He said. He said that he didn't realize that, what, how great his mental health issues were. And now that he's on medication and he's got a therapist and all these things, he realizes how bad it was and that, and some excuse about how you know, because his his his dad was an alcoholic and beat up his mom that he I'm like, get in line, guy. Our family's not killing anybody,
Steve Kmetko
and we'll be right back. What's the biggest lesson you learned from all that?
Eva LaRue
I mean, the lesson is ongoing. We're still like learning stuff about ourselves and about how to manage fear, how to manage how to manage the frustration around the Justice part of it, you know, because there's such a long way to go in terms of legislation and awareness, so it's really an ongoing education.
Steve Kmetko
And the thing is, you have to be able to live your life. You
Eva LaRue
have to be able to live your life. So you really have to compartmentalize all of all of that. And when we started to do the interviews for the documentary, we really realized we had our therapist on speed dial, because all these feelings came that we had really had shoved away in some little cabinet drawer under the heading Stalker was a lot of things that we hadn't even talked about together. You know, a lot of things that you don't the depth of the fear and the depth of the destruction, you know, is not something you talk about with all the time or with a lot of people. So doing those interviews for a couple of weeks was really, was really quite hard.
Steve Kmetko
Tell me about working with David Caruso. He had a reputation for being rather intense.
Eva LaRue
He was intense, but he was really good at what he did. And he, honestly, he was always really great to me. So I he was lovely to me, and he was, you know what he was really great at. He was really great at giving acting advice, so he could really see as the scene from the outside. And I think a lot of times when, if he was perceived as difficult, it was, because he would, you know, when you're in series for a long time, the writing will have holes in it, and you're the actor, so you know where the holes are, but nobody's really listening. And then the scene's written kind of wonky, and maybe it doesn't make great sense. And so he'd be rewriting stuff and redoing stuff, and then he'd and then he was also really good at just being like, Hey, can you give me more of this? I think if you do it more like this, it'll be I found it helpful, but you don't mind that? No, I don't. I don't. Also, if I don't, in my head, think it works, I just won't. But I do. I always find it helpful. I find other people's perspective helpful no matter what I'm doing, because I don't have to completely buy their perspective, but there's some piece of there might be some piece of truth in it, or something I can riff off of. So I always think there's no bad ideas, because even at the worst idea, you can riff off that, and you might find something fantastic in that dirt. You know what I mean, might find a little nugget of gold in the dirt. So never a bad idea,
Steve Kmetko
even if you think it's sus, even if you think it's sus, janky. How did becoming a mother shape your career?
Eva LaRue
Oh, it's it's everything. How old is your daughter now? She's 23 now. Oh, wow, yeah, gonna be 24 in about two months.
Steve Kmetko
You look like you could be that
Eva LaRue
age. Oh, thank you. Your Glass. You need new glasses.
Steve Kmetko
What has what has been the greatest challenge?
Eva LaRue
I don't feel like there's i. Don't feel like there's been a challenge. Like I said, I had that really great period, you know, torn as a professional, torn as an actress, where that I wasn't working. You know, you're always panicked that you're not working and waiting for the next job. But at the same time, I loved having those years of just us. We traveled everywhere. I suddenly had, you know, coming up through the industry, I either didn't have the money and had plenty of time, or didn't have the time and had a job and had money. But for the first time, I had the money from leaving CSM Miami and all this time. So I dragged that kid all over the world with me, and it was the best thing I think, we ever did as an education for her, as an education for me, just in terms of being a global human being, you know what? I mean? It's really important, I think, to to have a global perspective, or else we get really way laid into the weeds with these small groups of people.
Steve Kmetko
And if she wanted to pursue a career in acting. What would you say?
Eva LaRue
Oh, I'd be totally for it. She's a really great actress, but she hates the audition process. Who doesn't, who doesn't, yeah, but she really, really rattles her so. But she's a really great little on air personality. She's, maybe she's better as a host.
Steve Kmetko
She's super funny. There's so many places where you can find work now.
Eva LaRue
Yeah, you can make your own really
Steve Kmetko
speak from experience. Who was your biggest on set prankster at CSI?
Eva LaRue
We didn't really have one, thankfully. I think that would have been so annoying. I don't, you know, they always talk about, you know, George, is it George and Brad Pitt? Like they have, like, this ongoing, yeah, George Clooney and Brad Pitt have this ongoing major pranking, like, like, really high level pranking. I think the last story that George Clooney told was how he wrote a letter from Meryl Streep to Brad Pitt, and that nobody knew about it until Brad ran into Meryl and was like, oh, their letter. Boom. She's like, what? I don't know what I don't remember all the whole story or what it entailed, but it was something crazy. And then he got him. Brad got So luckily, no was a very was a very funny set. Everybody had the best sense of humor, but there was no pranking.
Steve Kmetko
Do you have a favorite funny or unexpected moment from CSI?
Eva LaRue
Not that I can't think of off the top of my head. It was always funny. I mean, I think the funniest thing about CSI was not so much what was happening on set, even though everybody was always laughing and joking. But my sister, who was like, I find it very interesting that you guys go into these darkened buildings and houses and apartments looking for trouble. No, we're looking for clues. Like, right? We're going in there looking for evidence. We need the tiniest hair. We need a little tiny blood batter that's like that big. But we go in in complete darkness with our guns drawn and our lights over our gun, and she's like, nobody thought to, like, switch on a light. Nobody wants to turn the lights on, and that you're trying to find a tiny little hair with a tiny little flashlight. And, like, it's for dramatic effects. It's, I always wish, though, that we had done the send up version of CSI Miami. It would have been
Steve Kmetko
pretty that's something you can consider for the future, right? Thank you, Eva. This has been a lot of fun for Thank you. It's
Eva LaRue
been a lot of fun for me. I appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Steve Kmetko
Still here Hollywood is a production of the still here network, all things technical, run by Justin zangerly, theme music by Brian Sanyshin and executive producer is Jim Lichtenstein. Jim.