Mexican actress and global star Salma Hayek Pinault has revealed she was deemed “too sexy” to star in a comedy, with Hollywood essentially blocking her from the genre for many years.
After breaking through with Robert Rodriguez’s “Desperado” in 1995, she had a strong career in dramas, action and genre fare including “From Dusk till Dawn,” “Fled,” “54,” “The Faculty,” “Wild Wild West,” “Traffic,” “Frida,” “After the Sunset” and more.
But comedies for her were essentially non-existent aside from a pair of rom-coms in 1997 – Sony’s “Fools Rush In” with Matthew Perry, and the little seen indie comedy “Breaking Up” alongside “L.A. Confidential”-era Russell Crowe.
In a new interview with GQ UK, she says it wasn’t until the Adam Sandler-led 2010 feature “Grown-Ups” that she got the chance to star in a traditional studio comedy:
“I was typecast for a long time. 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 humor.’ Not only are you not allowed to be smart, but you were not allowed to be funny in the ’90s.”
She adds that times have changed and so she doesn’t hold any resentment because these days she can do what she wants:
“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 Pinault was recently the voice of the female lead in “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” and will shortly be seen getting romantic with Channing Tatum in Steven Soderbergh’s “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” which opens in cinemas on Friday.
