Salma Hayek says Adam Sandler helped her realize she could be the funny one, too
Often type-cast outside of comedy, Salma Hayek said Adam Sandler helped her realize that she deserved roles dynamic enough to encompass sexiness and humor
Aux News Salma Hayek
Anyone who saw Salma Hayek’s 2009 run on 30 Rock knows: her comedic timing is just as glistening as her hair. But as the actor recalls in a new interview with GQ UK, she was blocked from comedic roles for much of her early career and instead pigeonholed into bombshell roles that often lacked bite—until Adam Sandler came her way with Grown Ups.
“I was typecast for a long time,” Hayek tells the publication’s Olivia Pym. “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! 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.”
This isn’t the first time Hayek has spoken about experiencing over-sexualization in Hollywood—in the past, she’s also named names. In a 2017 essay for The New York Times, Hayek detailed her experience working with Harvey Weinstein, who she says once told her that “the only thing I had going for me was my sex appeal.” Hayek had just filmed the 2002 Miramax biopic Frida, which eventually saw her nominated for an Academy Award; she wrote that, at the time, Weinstein told her he “was going to shut down the film because no one would want to see me in that role.”
Although Hayek admits to GQ UK that she was “sad at the time” in her career she felt imprisoned by typecasting, she’s since filled her career with comedic roles—there’s even a turn in Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party on her resumé. She’ll add to the list this month with Stephen Soderbergh’s extravaganza Magic Mike’s Last Dance, in which she stars opposite Channing Tatum.
“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,” she says. “So I’m not sad, I’m not angry; I’m laughing. I’m laughing, girl.”
28 Comments
What a coincidence – Adam Sandler also made me realize that I could be the funny one too. I watched him and thought “Hey, if people think this guy is funny, then even I could be funny.”
Looks like he’s teaching her one of the oldest gags in the book.
Did she forget she was in Dogma?Granted, she wasn’t great in it.
I was about to say the same thing. She had this opportunity before Sandler, but she kinda squandered it.
I wouldn’t even call that a character written to be funny in the first place.
She also starred in that Matthew Perry comedy Fools Rush In (1997)
Of course she had to be the funny one in their scenes; Sandler hasn’t been funny since 1997
Not a fan of Sandler’s comedies lately (I do like his dramas – thought Hustle was a legit great basketball movie). But it makes sense why people like working with him – he basically gets studios to greenlight fun vacations for him and his cast, much of which are his friends.
Hubie Halloween is really stupid and way too long but goddamn does it make me laugh.
I’ve heard Sandler’s a pretty decent, professional guy on set and in production, so this doesn’t surprise me.
As has already been pointed out, he also basically keeps his buddies in work and does location shoots in whatever area he wants to hang out in (whether that’s Salem, Massachusetts or Hawaii).
That counts for a whole lot. Its good to hear that professionalism and good behavior towards co-workers is rewarded in Hollywood.
It really does. If you’re the type of guy who can deliver productions on time and in-budget, while being someone who is a decent guy on set that others like working with, you’re not going to lack for work (see also Ron Howard).
That counts for a whole lot. Its good to hear that when professionalism and good behavior towards co-workers is rewarded in Hollywood.It’s rare, but it happens.
But wait, I thought it was a biological fact that women aren’t as funny as men?
Are you riding the cosmic ghost of Norm MacDonald?
Fun fact: a study using captions written by blind authors regarding funny pictures showed that people found women’s captions to be funnier, but only when they didn’t know they were women. When the same experiment was done with the readers knowing the genders of the writers, they tended to slightly prefer the male writers’ captions.Basically, men are funnier because culturally we laugh less when women do the same exact things men do, not because men are saying or doing funnier things.
sandler man make vacation movie with friend in lcoations. u hear this? nobody saying this
I would say something about your grammar, but really I’m impressed a taco emoji can post at all, so you get a pass.
no yuo
Great, this means she’s willing to consider appearing in my (mental) pet project: A reboot of the Hope/Crosby Road pictures. Harry Connick Jr in the Crosby role, Jimmy Kimmel in the Hope role, and Salma in the Dorothy Lamour role.
Sounds like it would be worth a shot.
The Road to Las VegasWhat I’ve got so far is the boys are on the run after their NFT sales scheme went bust. They land in Vegas where they cross paths with Salma, a showgirl who has trouble with a local mobbed up producer, and they get into hijinks helping her out. I haven’t cast the producer yet, though. Any suggestions?
Yes: stop giving it all away on these dumb threads!
I’m an old man of the mountain; do I look like I know any producers?Best of luck all the same.
Michael Peňa. He’s good in everything and doesn’t get enough work.
I like Peňa. I had been thinking more of a Weinstein creep, but the villain in the Road pictures was often more of a romantic interest as a foil to Crosby. Get me his people on the phone.
She should make a From Dusk til Dawn spinoff movie focused on Satanica Pandemonium
She’s funny and all, but it’s not like it’s hard to nail a “getting farted, sneezed, and burped-on while having sex” gag. It’s pretty much comedic fish-in-a-barrel.