SALMA HAYEK SAYS SHE STILL When I started out in Hollywood actresses would be finished by age 40... but now I’m 53 and having my best time ever
lenge is to find a passion for things when you have it all. You can never stop conquering yourself. You need to be always present and aware of what your challenges are every day.
“I’m 53 and couldn’t have picked a better time to have been born because I think there have been so many changes and I feel I’m part of these ongoing changes.
“I know there’s still a long road ahead, but I remember when I started out in my early 20s in Hollywood it was unimaginable then that a woman could still have an active career past 40. Then in recent years there’s been this explosion and I’m just glad to be part of this process now.”
Salma became a household name thanks to films like The Hunchback of
Notre Dame, Wild Wild West and Lonely Hearts. Her breakthrough role was in the 2002 film Frida, as Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.
In 2017, Salma alleged she had been harassed and abused by Harvey Weinstein during the production of Frida.
Salma left her family in Mexico to pursue a Hollywood career. It was tough, but she has no regrets.
She goes on: “I think about my acting career, of course I could have stayed in Mexico and gone on working in soap operas and continued working there, but I knew I had to leave and follow my dream and work in America.
“Even though it was very tough for me in my 20s to find work, because of my accent and because I was a Latina, eventually things worked out for me.
“I’m very happy with the path I chose and if I look at my life now I think that everything went in the right direction – even though many of my decisions were not that logical and don’t make sense to me when I look back on them!
I’m glad to be a part of the process now... I feel I’m a part of things SALMA HAYEK ON ROLE OF OLDER ACTRESSES
INTENSE
“But somehow it took me to the place where I really wanted to be.”
In her new film, The Roads Not Taken, Salma stars opposite Javier Bardem.
Javier – famously intense on screen – plays a divorced writer with dementia and Salma is his high school sweetheart.
The pair have known each other for 15 years and Salma is best friends with his wife, Penelope Cruz.
She says working with Javier “scared” her – and reveals they didn’t speak for