Seventeen-year-old Kate has pressing issues to address at the start of Land of Women that have nothing to do with her trans and queer identity. Like, why did her mother, Gala, played by Eva Longoria, scoop her up from boarding school and whisk her and her grandmother Julia away to the tiny wine village where Julia grew up? Where is her dad? And why does Gala have tens of thousands of dollars strapped under her couture dress?
Gala quite literally plucks Kate, played by the remarkable newcomer Victoria Bazúa, from the arms of her girlfriend, Maggie (Layna Sheppard), to wrest her family to safety from the heavies tracking her deadbeat husband (played by James Purefoy) for money he owes the mob. But Apple TV+’s Land of Women doesn’t mention Kate’s trans identity until midway through episode 2. Even then, her ID is primarily mentioned to model her family supporting her. And that’s just how executive producer Longoria and creator Ramón Campos wanted to tell the story of the character Bazúa is proud to inhabit.
“I am very dearly appreciative of Land of Women because they accurately portray how trans people actually live. Being trans is just 1 percent of who we are. We are talented, we're beautiful, we are smart, and we have something to say. We have a voice,” Bazúa tells The Advocate. “And this gave me the opportunity to speak up and to make my community more visible.”
Land of Women takes its multigenerational matriarchy on a cross-Atlantic journey to the middle of Spain. There they learn to appreciate each other in ways the bustle of their city lives would not allow. Carmen Maura’s Julia grapples with a past that brings her face-to-face with her estranged sister, Mariona; Gala carves a new path free from her husband; and Kate comes to appreciate her mother’s sacrifices. They also land in lockup, drink plenty of wine from the local wine collective, and find new crushes like Gala’s on Amat (Santiago Cabrera), the hunk who runs the collective and owns the house where Julia grew up. The series purposefully teeters on absurdity à la Pedro Almodóvar-lite (it doesn’t hurt that Almodóvar muse Maura is a lead), but there’s also plenty of heart. Much of that is witnessed in the family’s support of Kate, like in the episode 2 flashback where she meets Maggie’s less supportive parents.
Eva Longoria and Victoria Bazúa in Land of Women Apple TV+
“We wanted to delay this moment when we talk about [Kate’s identity]. So the spectator fall[s] in love with Kate, with the person that Kate is, and then we can talk…she is born in a body that she does not identify herself in,” Campos says of telling Kate’s story authentically. “Starting from there, it’s like, OK, so we’re going to talk of what we want to talk like family together. At the end of the day, they can go [on] long journeys…. I think that we have the opportunity to send the correct messages to the world. I think that we have a big responsibility to tell the people that there are some things that are important and that we need to take care of.”
Though much of Land of Women’s often breezy tone and sprawling landscape may have audiences wishing they were sipping Rioja in a quaint café in Julia’s hometown, La Muga, the series highlights the importance of trans people’s right to proper medical care. Finding herself an ocean away from the safety of her Boston-based boarding school, Kate seeks her medication from a country doctor who later outs her as trans. The plot is an opportunity for Kate’s family and supportive townsfolk to model standing up to transphobes. The role that Bazúa infuses with humor and warmth is her first, and Longoria says she was so perfect for the role that they changed the character’s background to cast her.
Eva Longoria, Victoria Bazúa, and Carmen Maura in Land of Women Apple TV+
“It was so important to us to find an authentic actor for the role. Our writer had written this character trans, and so as we were looking for the actor to play Kate, we got tapes from everywhere. And I remember it was originally, [she] had to [have] a Spanish accent from Spain. And when we got Victoria's tape, she was from Mexico,” Longoria explains. “Ramón called me, and he goes, ‘I found our Kate. She’s perfect.... Her acting is so good and she’s never acted before in her life.’ And we fell in love with her so much that we changed the whole character…to be from Mexico.”
As the story goes, Julia fled Spain to the United States as a young girl and gave birth to Gala, whose husband moved the family to Mexico for work for a time, and that’s when Kate was born. A Hollywood multihyphenate from Desperate Housewives to 2023’s Flamin’ Hot, Longoria says that having representatives from GLAAD on set for a pilot she directed years ago instilled in her the importance of authentic casting and listening to the actors playing those roles. It turns out that Bazúa could relate to the plot about seeking her medication, as she’d had hers taken from her at an airport. So Bazúa, who was 16 when they shot Land of Women’s pilot, sat with the show’s writers sharing her experiences.
Victoria Bazúa and Layna Sheppard in Land of Women Apple TV+
For her part, while Bazúa learned from legends Longoria and Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) on set — she says she and Longoria call each other "mother" and "daughter" — she hopes her character will inspire others.
“I’m forever grateful for having this opportunity. I hope audiences and the people that watch this show can realize that trans people are just people. They just want to live their lives and be themselves,” Bazúa says. “And if you're a trans person watching this, it doesn't matter what people say. What really matters is what you think of yourself and how you feel about yourself at the end of the day.”
Eva Longoria and Victoria Bazúa in Land of Women Apple TV+
Eva Longoria, Victoria Bazúa, and Carmen Maura in Land of Women Apple TV+
Victoria Bazúa and Layna Sheppard in Land of Women Apple TV+
