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 Entertainment | March 2006 
Out of the 'Dust': Salma Hayek Approaches Life with Intensity
 Bruce Westbrook - Houston Chronicle
| | As if directing and acting weren't enough, Salma Hayek runs her own production company and is developing a TV pilot. |
Salma Hayek hit Hollywood from Mexico 16 years ago. Like many newcomers, Hayek was a nobody, and her accent and Hollywood's penchant for stereotypical Latina roles didn't help.
But Hayek hung in, and when Austin, Texas, director Robert Rodriguez gave her a big break in Desperado, the heat was on. Since that 1995 film, it's continued in a variety of work, the zenith - so far - being her Oscar-nominated title role in 2003's Frida.
In the biopic, she played Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Now she's playing a fictional Mexican woman - a waitress in 1939 Los Angeles - in the film noir Ask the Dust.
For actresses of any background, "it's tough to find good women's roles," Hayek says, "so I got lucky with this one. I think there'll be a lot of American girls who are jealous of my part."
She stars opposite Colin Farrell, who plays an Italian-American writer trying to launch his career. They meet at a diner, fling insults and objects at each other and wind up in a passionate affair.
Hayek, 39, was "a little wary" of Farrell at first, due to his party-boy image.
"You hear all kinds of things," she said. "I didn't know if he was going to know his lines, or be on time, or if he could play the part. And maybe we weren't very comfortable with each other at the beginning - my fault."
"But, oh, my, he's the only actor I've ever worked with who knew the script by heart when we were in rehearsal - his lines and mine. By the time we got to the set, we really trusted each other."
Based on a 1939 novel by John Fante, Ask the Dust was written and directed by Robert Towne, an Oscar winner for writing 1974's Chinatown, also set in 1930s L.A.
Ask the Dust was shot nearly two years ago but shelved for months when studio administrations changed. With authentic-looking sets and costumes, it was filmed in a remote area of South Africa.
"When you got to work, it was like going into a time tunnel," Hayek said. "It really felt like you were there."
Hayek's next film was shot closer to home. In Bandidas, due later this year, she and friend Penélope Cruz play bank robbers in early 20th century Mexico.
"It's more like Robin Hood than Thelma & Louise," Hayek said. "It's an action-comedy, and we're fighting for justice. It's very heroic, very funny and very sexy." Bandidas also stars Sam Shepard, Dwight Yoakam and Steve Zahn.
Hayek still stays in touch with Rodriguez, with whom she's also worked in Four Rooms, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids 3-D and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
"I have a sense of loyalty," she said of Rodriguez and his producer-wife, Elizabeth Avellan. "But it's not about owing anyone. It's developed into a friendship."
Hayek runs her own production company, Ventanarosa, which had a strong hand in Frida and is developing a TV pilot. She also hopes to direct another film after helming 2003 Showtime movie The Maldonado Miracle, about a small town where a statue of Jesus appears to shed tears of blood.
"What I like the most is definitely directing," Hayek said. "I love acting, but I'd be happy just to direct. It's not even about the control. It's just that my brain works more naturally as a director. It's about storytelling, and I love that."
She also is writing a screenplay that she hopes to direct.
"When I had only 15 pages, I showed it to Jamie Foxx, and he wants to do it. But let's see if I like it when I'm done."
Hayek was a presenter at this year's Academy Awards.
"I was a little feverish, but it was nice. I just wasn't feeling 100 percent. But you couldn't tell, could you?"
She refused to compare best-picture winner Crash with presumed front-runner Brokeback Mountain. "It's comparing apples and oranges, and I really liked both," Hayek said.
Crash concerns some of the same L.A. racial divides shown in Ask the Dust - 66 years later.
"The good news is that it's gotten better," said Hayek, who was born into an affluent family in Mexico and as a teen lived in Houston for several months. "In the '30s, to get an apartment, it would say, 'No pets or Mexicans.' But the bad news is that it [racism] is still there."
She won't, however, let that deter her as she carves a career in Hollywood. "I have a lot of intensity and passion in everything I do." |
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