‘CSI: Miami’ Star Eva La Rue Thankful to be Home Again

After eight years of portraying Dr. Maria Santos on the ABC daytime drama “All My Children,” Eva La Rue was itching for a change. As much as she loved her character and daytime television, the grueling schedule of a soap star and the chilly east coast winters were getting to her.

So, La Rue packed up and ventured back to her native Southern California in search of a role on a primetime series or film. And with fate standing by her side, she quickly landed the role of Natalia Boa Vista, a lab specialist with a knack for grant writing, on the hit primetime series “CSI: Miami.”

“I knew that it was time to move back to California, because this is where I’m from,” the 41-year-old La Rue shares, reflecting back on her coast-to-coast transition. “My entire family is here and the majority of my friends are here, so I really wanted to come back. I just knew it was time to go and I knew that some way it would work out, so I took the big leap of faith.”

La Rue was only back in her old California stomping grounds for six weeks when she got the call to audition for the CBS series. With a 6-year-old daughter, Kaya, at home, the actress says it was the ideal scenario.

“I could not have hoped for better,” she says. “I didn’t want something where there were 18-hour days. I wanted time for my baby as well. In all possible ways, it ended up being the most brilliant job for me.”

However, the “most brilliant job” almost didn’t happen. At the time CBS came calling, La Rue was still under contract as a co-host for E! Style Network’s “Modern Girls Guide to Life.” And sure enough, La Rue happened to have a commitment to shoot a final segment for the show in New Jersey on the very same day CBS wanted her to audition in L.A.

“I thought, ‘Oh, this is so horribly unfair, but I guess if it’s just not meant to be, it’s not meant to be,’ ” she remembers thinking of the dilemma at the time.

So, La Rue went ahead shooting her final segment for Style, only to receive a call at the end of the day from CBS producers. They told her that the auditions had failed to produce what they were looking for, and asked if she could put herself on tape in New York the very next day.

Of course, La Rue ran over to CBS on a Friday and proceeded to have what she deemed a horrible beginning to the audition, thanks to the “foreign” language of the character she was reading for.

“They were all technical, all scientific, all a bunch of gobbly gook that did not make any sense to me,” she recalls of her audition lines. “I thoroughly screwed up my audition so badly that the casting people, thankfully, erased each take that I did and did a new take. And on the fifth take, I actually got it right, and that was the version that they sent out.”

Within a few days, La Rue was cast, solely on the merits of her initial taping.

“That never, ever happens for me,” says La Rue, who is of Puerto Rican, French, Dutch and Scottish ancestry. “I’m the girl that drags behind the train at every audition. I’m the one that has to audition several times and go into the network, and then go into the studios, and then be put on hold, and then go in and be put on tape again.

“This was just one of those awesome, meant to be things — so serendipitous. It was lovely.”

La Rue, who was born in Long Beach and grew up in Norco, Calif., first ventured into showbiz during her childhood. She started out by doing print work and commercials until she was about “8 or 9 years old.” She was also a teenage beauty queen, winning the Miss California Empire title in 1984. After taking a break to be with “the kids,” she started doing commercials again in her teens, so she could have some “gas money” for the car.

“For a long time, I thought I was going to be a ballerina,” she says. “I really thought that I was going to be a dancer. I didn’t think I was going to be an actress.”

Her first real break was being cast in the short-lived NBC series “Santa Barbara” in 1988. That led to appearances on such series as “Charles in Charge,” and “Perfect Strangers.” She then went to work as a co-host with Dom DeLuise on the new “Candid Camera” in 1991, before starting her long run on “All My Children” in 1994.

Like every star in Hollywood, La Rue can sit back now and laugh at the skeletons in her professional closet.

“Oh my God, I was flipping through the channels with my daughter the other day and I came across, I can’t even believe they still play this — I was like 18 when I did it — it was called ‘Freddy’s Nightmares’ and I was a guest star,” says La Rue, laughing. “I did one episode where I was a babysitter with an eating disorder. By the end of the episode, I had eaten the children and then turned into this massive pig monster. It was hysterical, and I was so bad in it and so green, but at the time I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, I’m kind of good in this!’ I was watching and my daughter was laughing her butt off.”

“I think my best screen credit to date is rock video slut No. 3, and that was on ‘Married with Children.’ That’s one of those things that I had to keep on my resume, because it’s just awesome, awesome credit — not only that, but there’s IMDB and they flippin’ out you!”

La Rue, a two-time Daytime Emmy-nominated actress, was previously married to John Callahan (following a divorce from John O’Hurley), who portrayed her on-screen husband on “All My Children.” She says the day the couple welcomed daughter Kaya together is her fondest memory.

“The interesting thing about being a mom, especially in this business, is that your life is spent being completely self-centered and selfish and vain, and you’re basically worried about your looks, and everybody else’s looks,” she explains. “You’re constantly comparing yourself, simply because other people are comparing you, because it’s such a competitive business that you have to be on top of your game.

“You’re so ambitious at such a young age, I don’t know if it’s really good psychologically. It certainly is shocking when you have a child and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, it’s so not about me anymore.’ And it’s fantastic because it’s not about you anymore. Suddenly your life gets balance and your life gets meaning and your life has substance.

“It becomes so much more all because this little person entered your life, and you can’t imagine beforehand even wanting that little person in your life because you’re like, ‘Oh kids, I don’t know, I guess I’ll eventually have them.’ It’s not first and foremost on the front of your mind in your 20s in this business. Suddenly, you have this wonderful little person in your life and you don’t really care that you’ve gained an extra 10 pounds and haven’t really lost it. It’s just a better healthier, emotional, psychological place to be.”

La Rue says balancing work and being a single mom can be a juggling act at times. Since her daughter is still young, she often takes her along to work with her. She also says that she is already starting to push young Kaya towards a career outside of entertainment.

“There was one time where I took her to work and we were shooting out at the Palisades at this big, massive, beautiful house — I mean this place was palatial,” she shares. “And we walked in and she goes, ‘Momma, how come we can’t have a house big like this one?’ And I was like, ‘Because Momma doesn’t make this much money.’ And she goes, ‘How do we make this much money?’ And I said, ‘You become a plastic surgeon!’ I’m really, really pushing for plastic surgeon because I figure mom’s going to need some work and it would be nice to get it at least half price, if not free!”

While becoming a Hollywood mom has given her a fresh, new outlook. La Rue says she often feels the additional pressures of being a single parent.

“I still feel even more driven, but in a different way to work like a fiend because I feel like, ‘Oh my God, I am a single mom and when this job is over and I’m in my 40s, I’m still the only one who at the end of the day is supporting us,” she says. “I need to make sure that we’re going to be alright. It’s just such a tough business. A plus B never equals C in this business. Just because you have a series that happens to be the number one series in the world doesn’t mean when the show is over you’ll automatically go onto another show.”

La Rue says the pressures of being a single parent can be challenging at times, and she wishes that women would do a better job of sticking together.

“The thing that really bothers me is that women are not supportive of other women,” she explains. “Had anybody told me how much guilt comes with that little package, I never would have believed it. But your whole life is run on, when you are at home, are you being a good enough mom? And when you’re away and you’re working, you’re obviously not being a mom. So then when you’re at home, you still have a house to run and bills to pay and workmen to fix whatever things, so you’re not able to sit down and play that 800th game of Princess Monopoly that you’d like to be playing if you didn’t have anything else to be doing. So you’re just always feeling like you’re not doing quite enough.

“Why not just say, this is hard, this is really hard and I’m really pressed sometimes? I want to be an awesome mom because that’s the most important thing, but I also have a job and I have to provide. And I have to do that well because I can’t lose my job, I can’t afford to. There are days when you are doing it beautifully, but there are other days where the house is falling apart around you.

“It’s exhausting. I just wish more women would say, ‘Wow, it’s OK that you don’t feel like you can do it all.’ Because I think that would make us all feel less pressure to be perfect all the time and be happy all the time.”

Not one to stand in the background, La Rue says that it’s important to lead by example when inspiring her daughter. The actress is extremely dedicated to philanthropy and you can often find her and Kaya serving dinners at shelters or assisting a number of different charities. She is currently the national spokeswoman for the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition’s “Break the Silence” campaign, which encourages women to start talking about ovarian cancer with their families, friends and doctors. Her grandmother and great-grandmother both died from ovarian cancer.

La Rue is also involved with “Journey For Uganda,” a humanitarian documentary that explores the financial struggles of Uganda and shows the efforts to create a transparent accounting system to help with investments, international financial aid and business opportunities for the country.

“It’s this awesome software that was developed by a company out of Riverside, Calif. and it is a money-tracking system,” La Rue explains of the accounting system, first implemented by Uganda. “It’s basically set up for governments, or organizations, or even charitable organizations to track every dime that comes in and goes out in real time. So there’s always somebody accountable. It’s awesome and hopefully some day will be in our own government.”

In the midst of her non-stop charitable work, La Rue also recently found time to shoot a movie called “Lakeview Terrace,” the story of a Los Angeles police officer, played by Samuel Jackson, who will stop at nothing to force out an interracial couple who just moved in next door.

“That was really awesome; it was really fun,” La Rue said of the film. “When I got to the set, he [Jackson] was like, ‘Oh my God, I totally love ‘CSI: Miami’ and watch you all the time.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, I totally love you and watch you all the time!’

In the film, La Rue plays someone in internal affairs who brings Jackson’s evil character down.

“It’s a great script by really quite sneaky measures,” she said. “You’re not sure if he’s good or bad until three-quarters of the way through when you’re like, ‘Damn, no, he’s not good.’ ”

As for “CSI: Miami,” La Rue says she enjoys the moments when her screen time is abundant and she’s really able to sink herself into her character. She is also very excited about her future on the show.

“They’re giving Natalia a little bit more of her mysterious side back,” she says. “I think she’s going to be doing more work with the FBI, and you’re going to find out a little bit more about what she’s doing now, possibly still with them. That stuff’s kind of nice. I love it when there’s some mystery in the big coffin.”

One thing’s for certain, there’s no denying that La Rue has zero regrets about that decision to move back home.

“It’s the first time where I feel like I’m balancing pretty well,” she says. “I love my job and I love that it’s not five days a week, because that gives me time to go volunteer at my kid’s school and make the cupcakes and the cookies and go on the field trips.

“I feel like I’ve got right now a pretty good balance. It’s taken a number of years to get this, but yeah, life’s been really good lately.”

For more information on Eva La Rue, be sure to visit her official website — EvaLaRue.com