Salma Hayek
Salma Hayek
Salma Hayek is a Mexican-American film actress, producer, and former model. She began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela Teresa and starred in the film El Callejón de los Milagrosfor which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. In 1991 Hayek moved to Hollywood and came to prominence with roles in movies such as Desperado, Dogma, and Wild Wild West...
NationalityMexican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth2 September 1966
CityCoatzacoalcos, Mexico
CountryMexico
Before I had my child, animals were my life. I slept with four dogs in my bed.
I was privileged to grow up in Mexico at a time when you could play in the streets. We lived not too far from the ocean, and we would be outside all the time with the neighbours' kids, running free. What better place could there be for a child?
My mother was devoted to helping people - with my father's money! - who had great voices but didn't have the financial means to study music. He and my mum gave away dozens of music scholarships, and my mum opened a school in town, introduced opera to children and created fantastic programmes.
I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.
I think if you are young and you have children, you still have so much to prove. When you have children later in life, you lose a bit of that urge for working.
If it wasn't because of my high heels, I would still be in Coatzacoalcos with 10 children.
I received so many hate letters when I breast-fed a starving baby in Africa. I was in Sierra Leone in 2009 and I was weaning my child at that time - she was not there with me. There was a hungry baby who was crying because his mother had no milk, and I thought, 'Why throw away my milk if I can give it to a baby who needs it?'
I didn't think marriage worked. I thought everybody who was married was secretly miserable - that it was something they just put up with for their children.
You want to do movies that your children can watch, and that your children can have fun at and enjoy the experience of shooting.
A mother is willing and capable of doing anything for her children. You can justify it if you do something for your children, especially as a Mexican mother. I don't know about some other nationalities, but the Mexican mothers are like that. They will do anything for their children.
You have to embrace the character for everything that she was, without any judgement, and throw yourself completely, completely into it.
I have gotten a lot more attention than...other women that I find incredibly beautiful. And this has happened to me ever since I was a girl, when I was flat, had no teeth, was skinny and small as I could be. I always got more attention than anyone else. If I hadn't, I would have made sure I did...
We're a combination of extremely girlie girls who have a strong sense of justice.
You have supported the work of prosecutors dedicated to holding the perpetrators of these crimes accountable,