Land Of Women on Apple TV Plus is a comedy-drama starring Eva Longoria as a woman forced to flee to a small town in Northern Spain with her elderly mother and teenage daughter. Also executive producing the six-part series, Eva plays Gala, a New Yorker whose life is turned upside down when her husband becomes indebted to dangerous criminals and takes the family down with him.
To escape, Gala and her mother and daughter hunker down in the Spanish wine town her mother Julia fled 50 years earlier, where they hope to start a new life. But gossip in a small town spreads quickly!
Inspired by award-winning author Sandra Barneda’s best-selling novel "La Tierra de las Mujeres", here’s everything you need to know...
Land of Women release date
Land Of Women is a six-episode series that launches on Apple TV Plus, with the first two episodes released on Wednesday June 26 2024. A new episode will be released every Wednesday until July 24 2024.
How to watch Land Of Women: stream the new comedy drama online
Is there a trailer for Land Of Women?
Yes a Land Of Women trailer has been released by Apple TV+ which begins with Eva Longoria's introducing us to her life story. Do take a look below...
Land Of Women plot
The story follows empty nester Gala (Eva Longoria), whose glam life in New York comes to an abrupt end when her husband becomes involved in financial improprieties and implicates the whole family. When he vanishes, Gala flees to Spain with her aging mother Julia (legendary Spanish actor and Volver star Carmen Maura) and teenage daughter Kate and they seek to start anew in the small wine town in the north of the country that Gala’s mum fled five decades earlier, vowing never to return. The trio hopes to keep their identities hidden, but rumors travel fast in small-town Spain and soon their darkest family truths and secrets come to light.
New York socialite Gala, who looks like she’s got it all: a stunning wardrobe, a gorgeous husband Fred (played by The Following’s James Purefoy) and she’s about to launch her own wine business. But Gala’s perfect world comes crashing down when she discovers Fred is $15 million in debt to some dangerous gangsters - and they want their money… NOW!
Worried for her family - and a now vanished Fred - Gala rounds up her ageing mother Julia)and college-age daughter Kate (newcomer Victoria Bazúa) and the trio escapes to La Muga, the charming wine town in Northern Spain - which Julia fled 50 years ago, vowing never to return. There, chaos quickly ensues as they have to navigate small-town quirks, language barriers, family secrets… and a pair of bumbling hit men!
Land Of Women cast — Eva Longoria interview on playing Gala
Eva Longoria plays Gala in Land Of Women. Eva found fame playing Gabrielle Solis in the hit series Desperate Housewives from 2004 to 2012. She's also had roles in Decline and Fall, The Young and the Restless, Dragnet, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Tell It Like A Woman. She's even had a documentary series Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico (see pictured below).
How did Land of Women come about?
Eva Longoria says: "I was a big fan of the shows that writer Ramón Campos had done in Spain. So I told him I would love to do something in Spanish and specifically in Spain. He told me, ‘There’s this great book called ‘La Tierra de las Mujeres’ by Sandra Barneda and I’m going to adapt it. When I read the scripts, it was so funny and beautiful. I really loved it and it was in Spain so I was all in!
Land of Women also marks something of a return to acting for you…
"I’ve guest-starred in things but, yes, this is probably my first proper return to television - and it’s my first time acting in Spanish! If you like Desperate Housewives you’re going to love Land of Women because it’s the same tone. It’s a dramedy. It has mystery, drama and is very funny."
Can you set the scene for the series and describe your character, Gala?
"This show is about three generations of women; Gala, her mother, Julia, and her daughter, Kate, and we have to flee New York suddenly and go to Julia’s hometown in Spain. Gala barely speaks Spanish and Kate is like: ‘Why are we here?’ But Gala can’t tell them why. There are lots of situations for comedy with these women being fish out of water. Like Gala, I love wine and consider myself an expert. But, unlike me, Gala is a complete mess. She thinks she has her life together but most of it has been a lie."
Characters speak Spanish throughout - what does this add to the show?
"The characters authentically speak Spanish when needed - and English when needed. I love global shows like this that have an international reach. Audiences are now accustomed to reading subtitles. Sometimes the number one show in the world is not from the US because audiences like getting other cultural experiences."
What was it like working with Spanish screen icon Carmen Maura, as Gala’s mother Julia?
"I couldn’t believe Carmen was going to play my mother! Besides being an icon and an amazing actor, she’s also an amazing human being. While I speak Spanish, I don’t speak it natively, so there were certain words I’d mess up. Carmen would laugh and correct me. On camera, it quickly felt like we had been mother and daughter forever."
Since playing Gaby in Desperate Housewives, you’ve largely focused on directing. Are you happy being back in front of the camera?
"Desperate Housewives took off but, as an actor, I felt I wasn’t reaching my full potential; I was just standing there saying lines then I’d go home. I wanted to do more and I knew I could do more. So I used Desperate Housewives as my ‘film school’ and started directing shorts, then episodic, then half hour, then one hour, single cam and multicam. Then, before you know it, 10 years had passed of me directing. I like acting and directing at the same time - I like doing all of it!"
Who else is starring in Land of Women
Other cast of Land Of Women are Carmen Maura playing Gala’s mother Julia while newcomer Victoria Bazúa is her teenage daughter Kate. Santiago Cabrera plays Amat, Layna Sheppard is Maggie, Jim Kitson is Hank, Vianessa Castaños is Edna, Lolo Herrero is Berlanga and Colin Morgan is Prestamista. James Purefoy (Malpractice) is Gala's dodgy husband Fred.
Behind the scenes, locations and more on Land Of Women
Land Of Women is from Apple Studios and inspired by award-winning author Sandra Barneda’s best selling novel La tierra de las mujeres. The six-parter is created by Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira and Paula Fernández and is directed by Iris Award winner Carlos Sedes.
The series is produced by Bambú Studios, and executive produced by showrunner Campos, Neira, Sedes, Iris Award winner Teresa Fernández-Valdés, Ben Spector, Sandra Condito and Longoria via her award-winning production company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, founded in 2005 by Eva Longoria to produce film, television and documentaries.
Land of Women creator Ramón Campos knew he had a solid foundation in Sandra Barneda’s book, La Tierra de las Mujeres, but knew changes needed to be made to adapt the story into a TV series. "Sandra gave us complete freedom to adapt the novel. When we wrote the first episodes, we had changed many things but she realised the spirit of the novel was in the scripts. Our key was finding the theme for the series and that turned out to be identity, so we built the characters with the three women’s identities being our focus," shares Ramón, who also created AppleTV+ series Now & Then, Netflix period drama Cable Girls, plus Prime Video crime thriller, A Private Affair.
Set in Catalonia, most of the series is spoken in Spanish alongside about 30% English. ‘Eva’s character Gala knows Spanish but she grew up outside of Spain and Catalonia,’ says Ramón, citing the differences between the two languages. ‘Some of our characters speak Catalan when talking to Gala - but it tends to be when they’re trying to make a point and they use Catalan expressions."
Ramón has fond memories of working with the Desperate Housewives star. "Land of Women ended up being one of the easiest projects because Eva understands the entertainment business and the genre as much as anyone,’ he enthuses. ‘She’s a great comedic actress and is capable of conveying the story without speaking. Much of Gala’s details were not in the script, they were created by Eva. We had a very open, collaborative working environment."
Land of Women is set in the fictional village of La Muga, with most of those scenes filmed in the small town of Garriguella in the Empordà region of Catalonia, an autonomous community situated in northern Spain. Meanwhile, most of the New York City scenes were actually shot in Barcelona!
"We looked for architecture in the city that could pass for New York," says director Carlos Sedes. ‘And for the driving sequences, we shot on LED sets that made those scenes believable. Above all, we wanted to showcase what life is like in this part of the world to the viewer. We wanted to turn the life of the town into a protagonist. To me, La Muga itself is a vital character."
