Longoria’s ready to make her return to ‘Tele’ vision

EVA LONGORIA is back and there's nothing desperate about her latest gig.

Longoria stars in and executive produces “Telenovela,” her first regular role since “Desperate Housewives” ended in 2012. Monday’s two episodes are a sneak peek before the series settles into its regular time slot Jan. 4 on NBC. As the title suggests, it’s overthe-top. Telenovelas aren't exactly known for the quiet nuances of “Masterpiece Theatre.” In the pilot’s first 2 minutes, Longoria as Ana Sofia, faints twice, dropping like a bag of bricks to the floor.

“I’m naturally clumsy so it all works great,” Longoria tells the Daily News. “And it is so fun to do, I usually leave the set with bruises and my knee hurts.”

Ana Sofia is the star of a faux Spanish language soap called “Las Leyes de Pasion” the laws of passion. She’s sex on legs but the show pokes fun, revealing the stuffed bra, fake lashes and hair extensions perpetually blown by a fan. Naturally, Ana Sofia weathers drama, on and off-screen. With a running joke that even as the star of a Spanish soap, she doesn’t speak the language.

Nor does she like spicy food or dance salsa.

Her ex-husband is hired as her co-star, following their divorce.

“I thought marriage was between a man and a woman,” she tells him, “not between a man, a woman and Shakira.”

Ana Sofia’s pals, an actor who constantly rips open his shirt to show off his abs, and the costume designer, a grounded single mother, make this a workplace comedy as well as a show within a show.

A telenovela was a natural setting, Longoria says. She started on soaps, but telenovelas are more melodramatic because they pack in more — each usually has a limited run with a beginning, a middle and an end. They never linger for decades like American soaps.

Longoria, who does speak fluent Spanish in real life, did not while growing up, though that did not stop her from watching telenovelas.

“I still watched them because my family watched them,” she says. “You don’t need to need to speak Spanish to know what is happening in a telenovela. This is our love letter to telenovelas because we love them so much.”