Eva Longoria is more ''domestic'' than people think.

The 40-year-old actress - who recently launched her own line of soft furnishings with JCPenny and launched her own cookbook - claims used to make her own curtains and pillows because she ''couldn't afford them'' when she first moved to Hollywood.

She said: ''People don't realise how domestic I am. I had this s**t apartment, and my aunt Elsa would come over. She'd get so mad if I didn't have curtains or nice pillows. I couldn't afford them, so she was like, 'Then you need to make them.' So I would go to the fabric store and get discount fabric, and I would sew my own throw pillows.''

Eva decided to take a break from acting after 'Desperate Housewives' came to an end in 2012 because she wanted to focus on her charity work.

She said: ''I didn't want to work. You get tired.''

But she admits working on the TV series was relatively easy.

She said: ''I rolled out of bed, went to set, said my lines, and went back home.''

The brunette beauty, who has a degree in kinesiology, originally hoped to work in the NFL but entered a beauty pageant because she ''just needed the money'' which led her to Los Angeles.

She explained to America's InStyle magazine: ''I wanted to be a sports trainer for the Dallas Cowboys.''