Salma Hayek Credits Adam Sandler for Seeing Past Her Typecasting: I Was ‘Not Allowed’ to Be Funny Before
Samantha Bergeson
Salma Hayek Pinault may be showing off her comedy chops with “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” but she’s reflecting on her first chance at being funny onscreen.
Hayek Pinault, whose breakout role came in 1996’s “From Dusk Till Dawn” playing a stripper vampire, admitted that her first chance to break through typecasting came with Adam Sandler casting her in 2010 ensemble comedy “Grown Ups.”
“I was typecast for a long time,” Hayek Pinault told GQ UK. “My entire life I wanted to do comedy and people wouldn’t give me comedies. I couldn’t land a role until I met Adam Sandler, who put me in a comedy [‘Grown Ups’], but I was in my forties!”
Hayek Pinault looked back on casting through her career, adding, “They said, ‘You’re sexy, so you’re not allowed to have a sense of humor.’ Not only are you not allowed to be smart, but you were not allowed to be funny in the ’90s.”
The “Frida” Oscar nominee infamously was told by convicted rapist mega-producer Harvey Weinstein that her “sex appeal” was her best asset as an actress, and even landing Academy Award attention did nothing to change that.
“When I was nominated for an Oscar, the types of roles that people offered me did not change at all,” Hayek Pinault said. “I really struggled and I thought that was going to change, but no.”
Hayek Pinault continued, “I was sad at the time, but now here I am doing every genre, in a time in my life where they told me I would have expired — that the last 20 years I would have been out of business. So I’m not sad, I’m not angry; I’m laughing. I’m laughing, girl…I’m at a place in my life where I don’t think my sexuality is the only thing that’s appreciated anymore. But if it was, I wouldn’t care, because I’ve built enough respect around me from the people that really matter that I feel seen beyond that.”
Hayek Pinault recently opened up about the “physically challenging” experience filming “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” and detailed how acting opposite Channing Tatum in an intimate lap dance sequence almost put her in the hospital.
