Salma Hayek on Turning Contradictions into Personal Power in Vogue India August 2021

Actor activist Salma Hayek covers the August 2021 issue of Vogue India. Styled by Priyanka Kapadia and Annabelle Harron in ‘The Eternal Optimist’, Hayek is photographed by Jackie Nickerson [IG]. / Hair by Samantha Hillerby; makeup by Nikki Wolff

Priyanka Khanna conducts the Zoom interview for: Salma Hayek on playing a superhero at 54, rising above sexism in Hollywood, and cherishing family.

Salma Hayek has received numerous summer features for her insistence that she play a libido-alive, menopausal woman in the upcoming ‘Hitman’s Bodyguard’ sequel, officially titled ‘Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard’. Read AOC’s earlier post on the topic.

The Vogue India feature captures Hayek’s humor but also her acerbic tongue in a way not noted in earlier interviews. Clearly there was chemistry between Hayek and Khanna.

Besides her role in ‘Hitman’s Wife Bodyguard with Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson (out now), Hayek will appear in the Marvel film ‘The Eternals’ (October), directed by Chloé Zhao, comprising a stellar cast including Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan and Kit Harington.

In the November release ‘House of Gucci’, the actor plays a clairvoyant Pina Auriemma, sentenced to 25 years for allegedly organizing the killing of Maurizio Gucci, one of the heirs to the legendary Florentine fashion dynasty, for a fee of around £250,000.

Making Contradictions Your Own Power Source

Salma Hayek raises an excellent point with regard to women learning how to work with contradictions, a situation she’s come up against many times in life. Speaking to the lack of movie roles for Mexican women and Latinas — even though there are 60 million Latinas [in the US], Hayek talks about her lack of roles and working to change that reality.

Then she moves to the world of fashion, talking about her being very short and also loving food. "It was a combination of the things, you know, that you feel inside you and the things you know in your head. Make the things that should work against you work for you. As a woman, this is a virtue that we have to learn."

It wasn't just roles that she lost out on. Designers at that time declined to dress Hayek, then an unknown.

Now comes Hayek’s subversive humor: "I'm Mexican. I'm also very short, which doesn't help with the weight and doesn't help with the design," she says candidly. "But you know, I was ingenious. I took chances. I met someone at Hugo Boss, who was the only connection I had, so I wore man suits for a while. Another time, I had on a very simple black dress and I knew all the other girls were going to have fabulous dresses, beautiful jewelry. And can I tell you something? Instead of giving me a complex and saying that I don't have the best dress or they don't know who I am...I was like, I am fabulous. I painted some butterfly tattoos on myself and I felt happy about myself."

Today the world's leading labels are delighted to take care of Salma Hayek, who says. "What did I tell you? I make everything work for me, I married the owner of a fashion company. Now they have to make me the clothes. Karma for them," she laughs, that big laugh again, falling back against the armchair.