Salma Hayek is a household name worldwide and is in the spotlight again for her role as Ajak in Marvel’s Eternals. But here are some facts that even fans might not know about her.
Becoming a gymnast was Hayek’s childhood dream.“I fell in love with the sport, but there were no classes, nobody else was doing it, and I was teaching myself,” Hayek said during a 2017 appearance Live With Kelly and Ryan.
The actress said that at nine years old, she “begged” her dad to take her to a gym in Mexico City for the summer.
“I was there two months and I was so focused and so good,” she said. “At that age, I got drafted for the Olympic team. However, that would mean that I would have to be in a boarding school, six hours a day of gymnastics. And I would have to be away from my family because it’s in Mexico City, and my father said no.”
Hayek was expelled from a Catholic boarding school in New Orleans at 12 years old because of the pranks she pulled.
“I was ingenious,” Hayek told Town & Country in 2019. “I always had a sense of humor, but there was a naivety in the naughtiness.”
In a 2014 interview with The Wrap, the Eternals star elaborated on some of the pranks she’d play on the other students. Hayek said that her classmates would wake up early in the morning to put make-up on and curl their hair, meanwhile she “wanted to sleep until the last minute”.
One day, Hayek decided to set the clocks back an hour earlier to mess with the other students.“I laughed for about two hours,” she said, adding that she got detention and “got creative” there too.
Hayek’s first-ever audition was for the role of Jasmine in a children’s play of Aladdin in her home country of Mexico.
“I was 18. I had to sing and I had stage fright,” she told W magazine about playing the Disney princess. “It was a horrible experience – I got the job, but the work was a nightmare. I really suffered every day.”
Also Read: Salma Hayek All The Good Reasons To Fall In Love Many A Times
She wore temporary tattoos at the 1998 MTV Music Video Awards because designers wouldn’t loan her jewelry at the time. In an interview with Vogue India, Hayek opened up about her difficulty with finding designers to dress her or give her jewelry to wear for public appearances early in her career.
“I had on a very simple black dress and I knew all the other girls were going to have fabulous dresses and beautiful jewelry,” she said. “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.” “Creativity is everything,” she told InStyle in 2021.
Hayek told People that she saw an ad and got the owl as a Valentine’s Day gift for Pinault. In addition to Kering, the actress has several pets, including dogs, horses, alpacas, bunnies and chickens. Hayek has an animal sanctuary and most of her pets are rescues, some of which she found homeless on the streets.
Her hidden talent is that she’s good at sudoku.“I breastfed for 14 months, and my God, that baby could not get enough all night. I didn’t sleep for like a year,” Hayek, who has a daughter named Valentina, told W magazine.
“While she was breastfeeding, it was boring,” the actress said. “So I started doing sudoku, and I think I’m really good. I can do it sometimes in four minutes.”
Salma Hayek has unveiled a photo of herself with her rarely-seen daughter Valentina, plus the actress' stepson that her billionaire husband shares with supermodel Linda Evangelista, while together on a family skiing trip.
Salma Hayek was desperately seeking a snowier climate, after a snap of herself, her daughter Valentina and her stepson Augie, revealed that they were struggling to find somewhere suitable for their skiing session.
Salma Hayek, 56, braved the icy cold as she perched on a gondola with family members, including 15-year-old daughter Valentina and stepson Augie, 16 The group sported cozy puffer jackets to beat the freeze, including a pricey Moncler Grenoble jacket, worn by Salma, which sets each buyer back almost £1500.
Also Read: A Dynamic Duo In Hollywood: Salma Hayek And Antonio Banderas