Eva Mendes for Marie Claire September 2008

After a string of sexy roles in movies for dudes, Eva Mendes is tapping her inner girl’s girl.

The latest endorser of Calvin Klein scent Eva Mendes, 33, graces the September issue of Marie Claire magazine. In the interviewfor the mag, the actress talks about everything from growing up in a conservation-minded to working class family to which women she admires in Hollywood and to her rehab experience.

Mendes’s first true blue chick flick The Women is all-girl-all-star-cast: Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Cloris Leachman, Candice Bergen and Bette Midler. Calvin Klein muse revealed she was used to working with guys in films and suddenly found herself dressing up in rehearsals for the film surrounded by women. She says it inspires her to make herself “cute” because her co-stars are going to be cute.

Eva Mendes on women’s strained friendships with each other:

I don’t understand women who don’t like being with the girls. They say they’d rather be with the guys all the time? That it’s just so much easier? I’m calling bulls— on that.”

Eva Mendes on Annette Bening being a true role model:

She reminds me of one of those women back in the ‘40s and ‘50s. She’s a broad, and I want to be a broad. I mean, she’s like Ava Gardner or Bette Davis or Katherine Hepburn. Those women were broads. They said it like it was.”

Eva Mendes on her life growing up:

I was raised by parents who didn’t have much. We didn’t use whole pieces of paper towel. We shared, or used rags. Mom didn’t even want us flushing all the time.”

Eva Mendes on believing the public doesn’t need to know everything about where she lives and how long she’s been with her boyfriend:

Think about what this whole culture of celebrity has done to movie stars. It’s made them extinct. Actors used to carry films because people would have to actually go to the movies to see them. It was the only place. But now there’s none of that mystique, and so there’s less of a reason to buy a ticket.”

Full interview at Marie Claire >>

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