Salma Hayek says she wasn’t allowed to take on comedy roles for years because she was typecast as a “sexy” woman.
The Frida star sat down with GQ for an interview and lamented that she hadn’t been able to escape her first American movie role as a vampiric stripper in From Dusk Till Dawn. Talking positively about the Robert Rodriguez film, she did admit that it closed off other roles for her.
“I was typecast for a long time,” she said. “My entire life I wanted to do comedy and people wouldn’t give me comedies. I couldn’t land a role until I met Adam Sandler, who put me in a comedy [2010’s Grown Ups], but I was in my forties!
“They said, ‘You’re sexy, so you’re not allowed to have a sense of humour’. Not only are you not allowed to be smart, but you were not allowed to be funny in the ’90s.”
Reflecting on her journey through Hollywood, the actor added: “I was sad at the time, but now here I am doing every genre, in a time in my life where they told me I would have expired – that the last 20 years I would have been out of business. So I’m not sad, I’m not angry; I’m laughing. I’m laughing, girl.”
Hayek’s Hollywood debut came alongside George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Danny Trejo, and Juliette Lewis in 1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn. She went on to be cast in the cult religious-themed comedy from Kevin Smith, Dogma. Hayek went on to achieve critical acclaim in 2002 with the Frida Kahlo biopic, Frida.
Hayek’s next big feature role comes in the final Magic Mike film opposite Channing Tatum. She recently revealed that Tatum “nearly killed” her while rehearsing a lap dance scene for Magic Mike’s Last Dance.
The actor, who plays Maxandra Mendoza in the third film in the franchise, recalled a rehearsal for a lap dance routine that went wrong after Hayek was flipped upside down.
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