SaLma hayek
Is breakIng the mould…
Is so hot right now, as she lines up The Eternals.
When it comes to casting chatter, MCU Phase 4 tentpole The Eternals has fast become the gift that keeps giving, with gossip surrounding the involvement of Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden and Kumail Nanjiani. The latest star thought to be joining The Rider director Chloé Zhao’s MCU entry is Salma Hayek, recently seen bossing it in The Hummingbird Project and soon to do likewise in many other films.
“I’ve had to struggle really hard to get good roles,” said Hayek, who once recalled studio heads telling her she could have been huge had she not been born in Mexico. She’s silenced those doubters many times throughout her career, not least in 2002 artist biopic and passion project Frida, which she helped steer to six Oscar nominations despite the conflicts with Harvey Weinstein she detailed in an essay for the New York Times. Now, two decades-plus after her breakthroughs in Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn, you’d struggle to pin her talent down to one kind of role.
We’ll soon see her (alongside Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne) as a corporate high-flyer in the comedy Limited Partners for director Miguel Arteta, who previously directed Hayek in 2017’s stinging social satiri-tragedy Beatriz At Dinner. Also incoming is Molly, a drama from British arthouse veteran Sally Potter (The Party), in which Hayek will join co-stars Laura Linney, Elle Fanning, Chris Rock and Javier Bardem. She’s turning her hand to genre work as well with a co-lead (alongside Owen Wilson) in Another Earth director Mike Cahill’s sci-fi fable Bliss, in which she plays a woman living on the streets who believes the world around her to be a simulation. Meanwhile, she will tool up once again as Sonia Kincaid in The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, a sequel to 2017 action sleeper The Hitman’s Bodyguard, in which she’ll rejoin Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson. And, presumably, engage in more barroom brawls.
“Action is not my favourite genre of films,” said Hayek, who has also devoted her time in recent years to various activist and humanitarian causes. But she committed to the action vigorously in Rodriguez’s Once Upon A Time In Mexico and – even though she admitted it did not turn out as she had hoped it would – 2014’s Everly. The Eternals will signal another break with tradition for Hayek, who isn’t often associated with comic adaptations. But as she recently advised, “Push your own limits and break free of anything that’s supposed to be ‘the right thing’.” Whether she’s lining up to play a Deviant, a Celestial or an Eternal for the cosmic gamble, you can bank on Hayek to practise what she preaches.
ETA | 7 FEBRUARY 2020 / LIMITED PARTNERS OPENS NEXT WINTER. THE ETERNALS IS TBC.