The Last Sunrise’s Maia Reficco Reveals No. 1 Lesson From Eva Longoria
The Last Sunrise’s Maia Reficco Shares the Biggest Lesson She Learned From Onscreen Mom Eva Longoria
Maia Reficco is still pinching herself.
Not only did the actress get to spend months in Mallorca filming the Prime Video romantic drama The Last Sunrise—opposite Fernando Lindez—but sparring with her onscreen was none other than Gabrielle Solis herself, Eva Longoria.
“I think the best way to describe Eva was she's so hypnotizing,” Reficco explained in an exclusive interview with E! News. “She walks into a room and is so commanding in the best ways—and kind and generous and knows everybody's name. It's such a beautiful thing to watch.”
“I look up to her obviously as a woman, as an actor, as an entrepreneur—as everything she's done throughout the years—and watching her exist to me was very inspiring,” Reficco continued. “And the way she commanded a set as a director as well. She obviously has a very specific way of carrying a set. I felt very lucky to get to witness that and to learn.”
After all, despite the rumors that the Desperate Housewives star was headed to the Spanish island to film the adaptation of the Anna Todd novel, Reficco refused to let herself believe it was true—only to be disappointed when it didn’t pan out.
“I was skeptical up until the moment I met her,” the Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin alum admitted. “I did not want to get my hopes up. But then it was true, and then we got to know each other, and we had a blast—and had plenty of drinks and plenty of Spanish food. It was great.”
Beyond just playing Reficco's mom in The Last Sunrise, out on Prime Video Aug. 26, Longoria also proved herself to be a crucial person the actress could seek out for advice.
Lucia Faraig/Prime
“We spoke a lot about life and I was going through a particular time in my personal life and I remember just her advice in general was always so to a T what I needed to hear—or maybe not what I wanted to hear but what I need to hear, the 26-year-old noted. “And I think my biggest takeaway from that was watching someone so in their own power and element command those spaces.”
But though Reficco and Longoria were thick as thieves offscreen, their onscreen dynamic was a bit more fraught. In the film, Reficco plays Oriah a.k.a. Ry, a woman in her early 20s living with tubular sclerosis who joins her real-estate developer mom Isolde on what is ostensibly a summer work trip to her native Mallorca—only for Ry to discover a world outside her bubble, unlock secrets about her mom’s past and find love with local fisherman Julian (Lindez).
But while Reficco and Longoria’s scenes are full of tension—especially once Ry’s romance with Julian comes to light—for the Argentine star, it was important that their relationship be full of nuance.
Lucia Faraig/Prime
“I think my favorite thing in general about their relationship is this understanding of loving and accepting each other fully as complex,” she insisted. “It's about understanding your parent is not a superhero and they're not perfect.”
“I think it goes both ways,” she continued, noting of Isolde, “It's having a daughter with the situation that Ry's in, and taking her in as the whole person that she is.”
In fact, with both Ry and Isolde having to confront their choices and embrace the difficult path ahead, the cast and creative team wanted viewers “to understand what about their differences was clashing and what about those clashes could maybe become what bonded them.”
Of course, while Ry and Isolde’s complicated relationship is at the center of the film, it creates the space for Ry—isolated in many ways by the genetic disorder and how the symptoms have manifested—to explore Mallorca and find her own community in hotel clerk Amara (Chloe Sweetlove) and tempestuous Julian.
Lucia Faraig/Prime
And like their characters, who got off to a rocky start, Reficco and Lindez weren’t exactly fast friends—"we just kind of had these preconceived notions of who the other person was,” she admitted. “We were both very wrong and it was silly and goofy.”—although they were soon able to break the ice and develop a friendship that translated into their electric chemistry onscreen.
“We met on Thursday, and up until Saturday, we did not get along,” Reficco recalled. But after the Élite actor invited her to join him following a cast dinner, “We went out to this Argentine party, and from then on, we became besties.”
And soon, that time off exploring the island became a point of bonding for her, Lindez and the rest of the cast and crew.
Lucia Faraig/Prime
"We would all try and explore because we had the privilege of being in such a gorgeous gorgeous place,” she noted, recalling her and Sweetlove’s trek to a hidden beach. “The Spanish were incredibly welcoming. I spent a lot of time in Spain, and I felt really lucky.”
So much so that Reficco is already campaigning for another chapter of Ry and Julian’s life in Mallorca.
“I hope we can make another one,” she emphasized. “Keep putting pressure on Prime Video, people! Please, let's make another. I had so much fun doing the first one.”
The Last Sunrise is now streaming on Prime Video. For other hit novels heading to the screen, keep reading…
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