Salma Hayek Opens Up About Being Rejected From Comedies

Salma Hayek is known for a wide variety of films like Frida, Desperado, and Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. She first starred in the film called Mi vida loca in 1993, after which her career in Hollywood slowly picked up to the heights it is now recognized with. However, Hayek was typecasted way before she could decide the kinds of genres she wanted to explore as an actress. She would be cast in serious roles or as eye candy in romantic films, but never comedy. Recently, she opened up about her struggles with being typecasted in an interview with GQ UK magazine.

Hayek On Being Typecasted

Even though Hayek had been cast in romantic comedy movies such as Fools Rush In with FRIENDS fame Matthew Perry back in 1997 and then later on in the film Breaking Up. The actress was never offered nor accepted for actual traditional comedy films. She was told she was ‘too sexy’ to star in a pure comedy film.

She was seen as someone who was just beautiful, which made her career aspects one-dimensional. Since she was sexy, she wasn’t considered for roles that were funny or intelligent. She spoke about her experiences in the interview:

“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, 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 struggled with finding comedy roles for nearly 20 years before coming across Adam Sandler, who offered her a role in the 2010 comedy Grown Ups. That was her first ever traditional comedy film, and since then, Hayek has been seen in a different light than before. Recently she was cast in Marvel’s Eternals, a role that had nothing to do with how she was perceived as mere eye candy in the past. 

Apart from that, she also starred in Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, another comedy-action film that emphasized her character’s funny as well as action-packed aspects.

Hayek’s New Film

Hayek mentioned how she was saddened by the typecast that followed her around for years while talking about her new film Magic Mike’s Last Dance:

I was sad at the time,” said Salma Hayek. “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.”

She has managed to escape the claws of the industry, rightfully proving that age is just a number. In the new film, she stars opposite Channing Tatum, who plays the famous male stripper from the earlier installments of the Magic Mike franchise. This time, she stars as Mike’s older love interest, who works with him to make money out of male strippers like Mike.

The brand new film will be released on 10th February and stars Matthew McConaughey and Olivia Munn, apart from Salma Hayek and Channing Tatum. Regardless of her role in the new film, Hayek has done enough to prove that an actor is more than the boxes they’re put in by the industry. Hopefully, we’ll get to see her play more and more dynamic characters over the years.