Salma Hayek: I am a feminist because a

lot of amazing women have made me

who I am today
When the star of Frida and From Dusk Till Dawn first arrived in Hollywood,
she was dismissed for sounding like a Mexican maid. As she prepares to
showcase her new film at the Women of the World festival, she talks about
womens rights and how she became a power-player in the movies
Unsisterly though it sounds, I didnt expect to like Salma Hayek very much.
Because we both go to a lot of catwalk shows, I see her all the time: Im
there as a reporter, and shes there because her husband Francois-Henri
Pinault is the CEO of Kering, the luxury group that owns Gucci, Saint
Laurent, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Bottega Veneta, among
others. There, she rocks a kind of bosss wife vibe, dressed to the nines in
the designers clothes. Or at least thats how it had always come across to
me. And Id watched her new film, an animation of Kahlil Gibrans The
Prophet, aimed at families: a passion project that is charming, beautifully
crafted, impeccably well-intentioned but, nonetheless, could perhaps do
with wearing its learning a little more lightly.
Expecting grandeur, I am a little taken aback to arrive at the Park Cafe,
appointed by Hayeks people for our interview, to find it isnt an ironically
named smart restaurant, as I had assumed. Its the kind of cafe where you
queue with a plastic tray, next to a noticeboard of flyers for Monkey Music
and community gardening projects, for a polystyrene cup of PG Tips with
the teabag left in. Its not quite somewhere I can picture Hayek Oscar
nominee, billionaires wife, Hollywood bombshell hanging out, so I wait
outside. Sure enough, when she arrives tiny, radiant, swathed in
cashmere, flanked by a bodyguard and an assistant who is being dragged
along by Hayeks golden labrador, Lolita it turns out this isnt the place
she had in mind. But shell show me the way, she says, leading me in the
direction of a restaurant elsewhere in west Londons Holland Park, chatting
merrily about nothing in particular the weather, Milan fashion week, how
she needs a coffee.
The Belvedere Restaurant is quiet and serene, with white tablecloths and
stem vases on the tables. But it is mid-afternoon, and the place is just about
to close, the cloakroom attendant explains. Hayek asks very nicely: could we

perhaps just have a coffee? But the attendant, who doesnt recognise her,
politely shows us the door. Hayek seems quite relaxed its a nice day for a
walk in the park, she says.
I would die if I did nothing but manicures and lunches. That would be a nightmare to
me

Well, yes, except there is a howling wind that means I wont be able to
record our conversation, and its too chilly to sit outdoors, so I duck back
into the restaurant, find the manager, and explain that Hayek is
a huge movie star. He looks past me, out of the window, and sees her just as
she tips her perfect profile upwards to the early spring sunshine like a
leading lady finding her spotlight. Immediately he ushers us to a table by
the leaded windows overlooking the park. On International Womens Day,
Hayek will present the UK premiere of The Prophet as part of Southbank
Centres Women of the World festival. Hayek sees the message of the book
as particularly important to women, because it is about the courage to
speak up, to believe you are worth being listened to, she says. Gibrans
classic has sold over 100m copies worldwide, in 50 languages, since it was
first published in 1923. And yet it has never had publicity. Its been read by
generation after generation without ever really having fame. Its not a
religious book, its poetic and philosophical. Its a book written by an Arabic
man, which unites all religions. That itself I think is important.

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A scene from The Prophet, Salma Hayeks adaptation of the prose poetry book by Kahlil
Gibran. Photograph: PR

Hayek was a late bloomer, personally and professionally. She became a

mother at 41 and married 18 months later. She was born into an affluent,
cultured Mexican family, with Lebanese ancestry. Her father was an oil
executive who once ran for mayor of their port city of Coatzacoalcos, her
mother an opera singer who funded a music programme for less well-off
children. At 25, already a television star in Mexico, Hayek moved to
Hollywood, only to find that no one would hire me. She told Vanity Fair, a
decade later: I had studio heads say to me, You could have been the
biggest star in America, but you were born in the wrong country. You can
never be a leading lady, because we cant take the risk of you opening your
mouth and people thinking of their maids. Alfred Molina, who played
Diego Rivera to Hayeks Frida Kahlo in the 2002 biopic she produced and
which earned Hayek her Oscar, Golden Globe and Bafta acting nominations,
said that If Salma were white and male, shed be bigger than Harvey
Weinstein. Weinstein himself called her, admiringly, a ball-breaker.
Frida, which Hayek spent eight years getting made, changed perceptions yet
failed to bring on the meaty roles she might have hoped for. Since, she has
executive-produced the award-winning Ugly Betty TV series, taken some
comedy roles in Adam Sandler movies, and voiced Kitty Softpaws in Puss in
Boots.

Salma Hayek on why Frida Kahlo

was a great artist

Read more

Aged 48, she has five films scheduled for release in 2015. She is still
gorgeous, with an insanely voluptuous body on a tiny frame, less than 5ft
2in tall, with delicate little wrists and hands. Her face is cartoonlike in its
perfectly symmetrical beauty. Her accent varies, sometimes a patrician,
Euro-veneer she is based in London, where her daughter is at school, but
the family spend a lot of time at their country house just outside Paris and
then dipping into a sing-song, Jenny-from-the-block Latina accent that she
puts on for effect when throwing off one of her saltier asides. Today she is
wearing a navy Gucci coat with a Bottega Veneta scarf, over an Alexander
McQueen fitted sweater and white shirt, and pin-striped trousers. And the
most important thing, the thing you dont see, she says, dropping her voice
half an octave and raising an eyebrow half an inch: Stella McCartney
undergarments. So beautiful, so comfortable, so well made. This is
important, no? But I cant believe we are talking about undergarments! I
wont tell you the colour at least!
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Two years ago, Hayek co-foundedChime for Change, in aid of womens and
childrens health and education worldwide. Current projects include
building schools for Syrian refugees in Turkey and Lebanon, and
fundraising support for a female inventor who has come up with a cheap-toproduce incubator for under-resourced maternity wards in the developing
world. She describes herself as an activist for women, but there was an odd
episode last year when she said she wasnt a feminist because if it was men
who were oppressed she would fight for them instead, or something. I want
to give her the benefit of the doubt, and hope she meant well. So I ask,
What does feminism mean to you?
I am a feminist because I love women and I am ready to fight for women. I
am a feminist because I am proud to be a woman, and I am passionate
about making the world a better place for women. I am a feminist because a
lot of amazing women have made me the woman I am today. I am inspired
by women every day, as friends and as colleagues.

But it should not be just because I am a woman, she carries on. How do
you say, when the doctor, he does this? She dramatically chops at her leg,
just below the knee. Um, amputation? I suggest. No! No, he hit your
knee and this time I realise she is miming a doctors rubber hammer
Yes! A reflex. It should be a reflex, if someone else is being hurt, to help. It
shouldnt have to be because you are being a victim too. I work a lot for
domestic violence, and people often ask me if I have experienced it. And I
say, no, on the contrary my father is a great man, my husband is a great
man. But we are all human beings, no?

Salma Hayek on religion, the

pope and The Prophet
Read more

You can see why she is a formidable fundraiser. There is something

marvellously brazen about her, a steely purposefulness in using her
considerable charm to her advantage. In the hour we are talking, she barely
breaks eye contact with me. And despite her diminutive size, you absolutely
wouldnt mess. She has a tendency to earnestness, but otherwise, shes
excellent company. The amount of pressure on women now, its crazy. You
have to be much better than your male colleagues, just so you can maybe try
and get the same salary as them. And you still have to be a good wife and
mother. And now you also have to be skinny, and you have to look 20 when
youre 40. Its too much. We need to stop with the crazy expectations, give
ourselves a break.

There were times as a young actor, Hayek says, where she would take any
job, take any commercial, to pay the rent. Now, she says: I still pay the
same bills I always paid, and I understand I have to hit a certain mark with
what money I make, to pay them. Really, I ask, a bit sceptically? Hayeks
husband is one of the richest men in France. Yes. Absolutely. If you took
my bills away from me, that would feel strange. I think it is part of what
gives me confidence, to work, to know I can pay them. I would die if I did
nothing but manicures and lunches. That would be a nightmare to me. It
was a condition when I married Francois. I said: Listen, dont think I am
going to be a society lady, OK? And he said, Of course I would hate
that!
Her nails, for what its worth, are painted deep red, but chipped at the tips,
and you can see the pale half-moons where the colour has been growing out
for at least a week. Hayek wasnt really interested in fashion before she
met her husband. But I have learned to really admire all the hard work that
goes into it. She says her favourite designers vary according to the season,
the look, my weight at the time.
The amount of pressure on women now, its crazy. We need to give ourselves a break

As we are gathering our things, she says, Oh, but we didnt talk about my
other films! And then she rattles through them, lightning speed. Theres
Everly, a gangster-thriller which we dont want to talk about. Its not what I
thought it would be. I want it to go away, that one. (I look it up: the
publicity shot features a topless Hayek holding a machine gun.) There is
Septembers of Shiraz, set in Iran in 1979, in which she stars opposite Adrian
Brody. I play an Iranian Jewish woman I do the accent really well and
its about how women get everyone through, in that situation. She played a
queen in Tale of Tales, a fairytale trilogy by Italian director Matteo Garrone,
and starred opposite Pierce Brosnan in the rom-com How To Make Love
Like An Englishman. Twenty years after her Hollywood breakthrough,
playing opposite Antonio Banderas in Desperado a role she followed with
a table-dancing vampire queen in From Dusk Till Dawn she is still in the
game. And they said I wouldnt be working after 35! Ha.
On seeing us getting ready to leave, the cloakroom attendant appears and
starts apologising to Hayek for not recognising her earlier. Hayek turns to
her, holds her by both arms, leans right in. Why are you sorry! You did
nothing wrong, do you hear me. You are not obliged to recognise me! You

were doing your job. You are doing a really good job. So stop apologising.
And she turns to me. See! This is what we are up against.
Salma Hayek Pinault will appear at Southbank Centres WOW Women of
the World Festival on Sunday 8 March