From humble beginnings...to reality star

Have you ever yearned to reunite with distant relatives?

Well, for Leslie Longoria, the term “distant” is sort of a double entrendré.

Tracing her Swedish ancestry seemed something like a pipe dream for Longoria until fate stepped in and swept her away to Sweden, where a new reality show hooked her up with old family and new friends.

Longoria was born in Oakland, Calif., and when she was nine days old her father brought her back to Texas, where she lived with her Swedish grandmother and English grandfather for a while in Corrizo Springs. She moved with her parents to Gonzales in 1978.

“I do a lot of family history and genealogy, I’m addicted to genealogy!” Longoria said. “I’ve been able to trace the Vivian side, which is my father’s side, back to the 14th century, but haven’t been able to figure out much on my mother’s side, which is Nordberg. The Vivians are Swedish, and my grandmother on that side is 100 percent Swedish.”

Longoria says her journey to find her family began with some difficulty, however.

“I could never figure anything out, I got on Ancestry.com. and couldn’t read anything because it was Swedish,” she said. “I eventually got in contact with a guy — Tommy — who said we were cousins! That was two years ago.”

Small world! It turns out that Tommy’s grandmother and Leslie’s grandmother were cousins.

“We talked for months through email and Facebook, and he told me I was going to have to come to Sweden someday,” she said. “I was working part-time at HEB, as I couldn’t work full-time because I am taking care of my mom and dad.”

 Longoria was concerned she couldn’t afford the trip to Sweden, but once again her friend came through.

 Tommy called and informed Longoria there was a Swedish reality show called Allt For Sverige that would pay for her trip and unite her with her relatives.

“I talked to my Pa, who said to go because it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she said. “So I got on the website and filled out the information. Two days later I got a phone call from Morica, the show’s casting director, who I talked to for almost two hours.”

From there, Longoria was passed on to the next round of the audition process, during which she was contacted by Sophia Eng, a Los Angeles-based producer who had done a movie with Val Kilmer. Eng told Longoria she was going to have to fly to L.A. to do more auditioning.

“I didn’t have any money to fly, but she said that was all taken care of,” Longoria said. “But I was still so afraid to fly I wanted to get a crash helmet and wear it on the plane. Well, they wouldn’t let me wear it.

Nevertheless, Longoria made it to LA, helmet or not.

“When I landed, I met my driver, who was also Swedish!” she said. “She drove me all the way to the Hollywood sign, the whole time saying [dons Swedish accent] ‘Oh we’ve goot ta go tha, we’ve goot ta go tha!’ So I got up there and got my picture taken.”

Upon arrival at the LA studio, Longoria met with more production staff, who proceeded to interview her, albeit in the midst of a “different crowd.”

“There were all these models and important people coming and going,” she said. “And here I was, a little country girl with my hair braided up, sayin, ‘I ain’t nobody,’ you know? But it turned out to be a lot of fun.”

After returning home from LA, Longoria was informed she had to set up a SKYPE appointment as the next part of the audition process.

“After that, I was told it came down to me and one other girl,” she said. “Later I found out it was me who was going to Sweden!”

Then Eng told Longoria she was going to have to do an acting performance in front of a camera, something Longoria felt a little hesitant to do.

“She wanted me to act like a movie star from the 1940s,” she said. “But I told her if I was gonna act like anybody, I was gonna act like Meg Ryan — ‘cause she’s hot!”

After that, Longoria, along with 10 other participants, flew to Sweden, where they stayed the night at a hotel. They began filming the very next morning.

“The show is very interesting,” Longoria said. “It’s about family history —they bring 10 Americans who have Swedish ancestry. The last one left gets to have a reunion with their family.”

Although the trip to Sweden didn’t come with a big paycheck, Longoria says the real incentive lies in meeting relatives that would have otherwise never been known.

“They gave us money to live on during our stay,” she said. “But even better was the fact that it wasn’t like an American reality show at all. There was no fighting — we were very bonded. It was a very emotional show.”

Although Allt For Sverige hasn’t been released for television yet, episodes can be seen on YouYube. And much to Longoria’s surprise, she discovered Allt For Sverige was the No. 1 ranked show in Sweden. In fact, she says she didn’t realize the Swedish media was going to be tagging along with the crew everywhere they went. Because of this, Longoria received quite a surreal experience one day while shopping with a crew member.

“I walked into a store one day with one of the casting members who needed batteries,” she said. “The clerk kid at the counter saw me and snapped. He said, ‘I know you — you’re Leslie!’ He had me on his phone, so he got a selfie with me! I thought that was pretty cool.”

After that, pretty much everywhere Longoria went, she was suddenly a celebrity — a far cry from being a stranger in a strange land.

“My braids were what got ‘em,” she said, “because Pippi Longstocking is a Swedish thing. They had Pippi Longstocking in a lot of the stores there, so I became very popular pretty fast because of my braids.”

“From the early auditions in February to the completion of filming in April, the whole thing was such a fun experience,” she said. “I was very blessed ‘cause I got to spend two days with my Swedish family. We had such a good time, and I got to learn a lot about my family history.”