Salma Hayek is somewhat surprised by the idea that she became an action star at the age of 54.
The actress was already a household name in Mexico due to soap operas when she made her Hollywood debut in Desperado in 1995, and has since been nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Frida Kahlo in 2002, and has had roles in movies like Savages. , Adults and cats with boots.
But she was surprised when told that the sequel to the 2017 comedy Hitman’s Bodyguard, in which she only appeared for two minutes, would have her in the middle of the frame, going head-to-head with Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson.
“I was very surprised,” he admits frankly. “Especially since there are all these things that I’ve done in my career where I’ve been a favorite character or one of my favorite characters and I never get a call, not just for another movie, but even the studio didn’t call me another movie.
“They called me very surprised and said: ‘My God, they loved you, but then they didn’t give me anything.
“So when the movie came out, they said, ‘Oh my God, they loved you. And even my boss said, “Yeah, we get it all the time, it doesn’t make any difference.” And suddenly, here we are. In The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, she reprized her role as the infamous international artist Sonia Kinkade, the fickle wife of Jackson’s killer Darius Kinkade.
While the first film was essentially a two-man film between Reynolds, as the title’s bodyguard, and Jackson, the sequel expands the murderous duo into a trio as they delve into a sinister global plot.
But old age is also accompanied by Sonya’s growing desire to become a mother, even though she is facing menopause.
“I think women are valued differently now than before,” says Hayek. “I was very lucky to have a director who really did something about it and got along well.
“And I was also very lucky to be involved in the process of the second film and I thought it was very generous, but also very smart, because the problem with action films is mainly the men who make them.
In my first film they invited me to participate in the creation of the character and now they also invite me to participate in the creation of the character in their participation in that universe.
And I listened. Of course there were some things that said, ‘Really?’ Are you sure we should go in this direction? It’s an action comedy, is dealing with menopause something that people will find funny or interesting?
But they listened. They went with him and I think we were able to make a character who, although she is an action character, is still a woman. It is not that a woman is trying to be a man, she is not trying to do it. be a man at all. ”
Placing a woman facing menopause at the center of adult activity seemed quietly revolutionary, but it also gave Hayek a chance to synthesize Sonya’s rising hormones with her itchy trigger finger.
“I think it would be really liberating because of all the changes we’ve made for women, the stigma that is probably the slowest to change is age discrimination.
“And in honor of that, my character goes crazy every time someone is disrespectful about it.
“This is like freedom, because sometimes we are not above it, but we are not allowed to be angry about it, but Sonya is.” And this isn’t the only action movie he’s working on.
Later this year, you will conquer the world of superheroes, playing the leader of a group of immortals living on Earth in Marvel Eternals, alongside Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden and Kit Harington.
This will be followed by a role in the drama House Of Gucci, the long-awaited film starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, in which Hayek plays a fortune teller convicted of helping Patrizia Reggiani orchestrate the murder of her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci, heir. to the Gucci fashion empire.
Somehow Hayek, who is married to Kering CEO Francois-Henri Pinault, with whom she shares her 13-year-old daughter Valentina, has the kind of career in her fifties that she thought she would enjoy 25 years ago, after make stars. Turn into Desperado by Robert Rodríguez, opposite Antonio Banderas.
“The trend was that if you’re in a movie that has a certain genre and it’s successful, they’ll put you in that genre for the sake of your career.
“That’s what used to happen, but I wasn’t very involved in anything because there weren’t many opportunities and it didn’t happen that way.
“At that time there weren’t many roles for women. It happened a bit, just like the Wild West [with Will Smith]Always a girl, but a girl in distress is the one who sometimes has to fight a little here and there, just a little.
“Back then there weren’t many action movies with strong women as heroines. But it is incredibly surprising that it is happening now. ” Does this imply the idea that labor dries up for a woman when it comes into her life?
“I don’t think I can attribute it only to the change [in Hollywood] Because I know a lot of really great actresses, and some of them are younger than me, and it just doesn’t happen to them.
“It is a real phenomenon, and I attribute it to the fact that nothing is normal in my life at all.
“So that goes for the better and for the worse. I’ve lived a really strange life, so strange things have happened to me, for better and for worse, but in this case forever. “
“It’s really weird, but I love it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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