Salma Hayek credits Adam Sandler for helping her break into comedies

Last Updated on February 8, 2023

For much of her career, Salma Hayek was typecast as the sexy bombshell, but the actress wanted more. One genre Salma Hayek wanted to break into was comedy, but she wouldn’t get that chance until Adam Sandler cast her in Grown Ups.

“I was typecast for a long time,” Salma Hayek told GQ UK in a new interview. “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 [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.’ Not only are you not allowed to be smart, but you were not allowed to be funny in the ’90s.” When Hayek was nominated for an Academy Award for Frida, she thought things would change, but said, “The types of roles that people offered me did not change at all. I really struggled and I thought that was going to change, but no.“

When asked if being blocked from comedy made her want to scream, Salma Hayek said, “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. I’m laughing, girl.” Salma Hayek played the wife of Adam Sandler’s character in Grown Ups, and would return for the sequel as well.

Salma Hayek will next be seen in Magic Mike’s Last Dance. The final movie of the unlikely trilogy stars Channing Tatum as Mike Lane, who takes to the stage again after a lengthy hiatus following a business deal that went bust, leaving him broke and taking bartending gigs in Florida. For what he hopes will be one last hurrah, Mike heads to London with a wealthy socialite (Salma Hayek) who lures him with an offer he can’t refuse… and an agenda all her own. With everything on the line, once Mike discovers what she truly has in mind, will he — and the roster of hot new dancers he’ll have to whip into shape — be able to pull it off? Hayek worked closely with Tatum as well as director Steven Soderbergh and writer Reid Carolin to explain what women want. “More than being a movie about an older woman falling in love with a younger guy, it’s about a middle-aged woman that has a lot of potential and is sick of being undermined her entire life,” Hayek said.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance will hit theaters on February 10th.