Since Salma Hayek’s Hollywood breakout role was dancing while wearing a red bikini and a snake in vampire movie From Dusk Till Dawn, she found that was consistently offered stripper roles in the 90s. She took control of her own career with biopic Frida in 2002, which she fought to get made and would end up being Oscar-nominated for.
Speaking to GQ ahead of the release of Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Hayek says that she “was typecast for a long time. My entire life I wanted to do comedy movies and people wouldn’t give me comedies. I couldn’t land a role until I met Adam Sandler, who put me in a comedy [2010’s Grown Ups], but I was in my forties!”
“They said, ‘You’re sexy, so you’re not allowed to have a sense of humour,’” she says with a grim cackle. “Not only are you not allowed to be smart, but you were not allowed to be funny in the ’90s.”
“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,” she says, quite clearly not laughing. “I’m laughing, girl.”
Now aged 56, Hayek has been given a fantastically sexy role in Magic Mike’s Last Dance, but she’s also playing a business woman who clearly has power and control. Ironically Adam Sandler – who is the exact same age as Hayek – has moved away from the typically comedic Adam Sandler movies more and more, in recent years. He has been critically-acclaimed for his dramatic performances in The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), Uncut Gems (2019), and Hustle (2022).
If you’re looking forward to catching Magic Mike’s Last Dance around Valentine’s Day, check out our guide to the best romance movies.