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
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 like being a mother. For some people, it's so much work that it can be a burden. But it's not for me, maybe because I had my daughter, Valentina, later on in life, at 41.
Being a mother is more exhausting than working, and sometimes I push myself too hard and burn myself out. I can appreciate how exhausting it must be for women who have to do everything themselves all the time.
I think it's important that kids have responsibilities and understand the value of things, but I think it's great I get to travel the world with my daughter.
I love to cook for my husband and daughter. I enjoy going to the market for fresh vegetables.
I love family films. Of course, as a mother who has to watch so many movies, you really appreciate it when somebody makes a film that is for everybody - family entertainment that's really for the family, where everyone has a good time.
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'm a country girl. I have to be in nature, so my daughter is exposed to it a lot.
...you have to understand that motherhood has to be your priority. It's important work.
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.
Somehow I am really relaxed within the chaos of having a baby - and anyone who's a mother knows it's very hard to relax, because there is so much to do and worry about!
Your empathy for other mothers is such a natural instinct and it's such a beautiful thing that we all connect, and we should all help each other.
I realize now that I've hoped to be great - as an actress, as a mother - because I want to embody the greatness of women who didn't get to be all they could have been. Their dignity, their courage, and their brilliance make me strive to be better. They're a part of me.
You have to embrace the character for everything that she was, without any judgement, and throw yourself completely, completely into it.