The one movie that gave Salma Hayek purpose: “I really felt like it was my destiny”
After first making the jump from her native Mexico to Hollywood in the mid-1990s, it was almost inevitable that American cinema would lean into her sex symbol status without considering that Salma Hayek was more than capable of outstanding dramatic work.
She more than held her own as an action hero opposite Antonio Banderas in Desperado before re-teaming with the director and having Quentin Tarantino drink tequila from her toes in an uncomfortably self-gratifying moment in From Dusk Till Dawn.
Further roles in romantic comedy Fools Rush In, Will Smith’s infamous disaster Wild Wild West, Kevin Smith’s Dogma, and another Rodriguez flick in The Faculty continued her upward trajectory without ever giving her the opportunity to take centre stage in a production that didn’t rely almost exclusively on the fact she was very easy on the eye.
If it was going to happen, then Hayek knew she would have to make it happen herself, with a biographical drama detailing the life and times of transformative surrealist painter Frida Kahlo quickly becoming a passion project. In what was emblematic of the difficulties she faced, one of the main criticisms when the film was announced claimed she was too attractive to play the lead.
It was a ludicrous assessment given that cinema is hinged on transformation, but as both star and producer, Hayek felt she had a point to prove and was more determined than ever to prove it. Of course, her dedication was justified in the end when she earned an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actress’, with Frida coincidentally – and ironically – taking home the Oscar for ‘Best Makeup’.
While a vocal minority of the cynical subset viewed Frida as Hayek intentionally seeking to break out of her bombshell wheelhouse by aiming for awards season glory, that does a major disservice to not only the performer but the connection to the character and material that saw her lead the movie through development and onto the screen.
“My connection with Frida and the movie, it gave me a purpose more than anything,” Hayek told GQ. “It was not a movie. She was my hero, but also it meant so much to me. All the things I wanted to complain about in the world or change the perception, the perceptions in the world, I could do with this film.”
It wasn’t all about her, either, with Hayek determined that Frida would help the industry take “steps out of the stereotypes that were used for all Latin-American characters at the time in the end of the 1990s.” For the star, it was much bigger than her and much bigger than the subject, too.
“I really felt like it was my destiny to make this,” she said. “And to do it the right way.” That’s exactly what she did, and more than two decades later it remains a performance Hayek has yet to better.
