Salma Hayek Pinault
Salma Hayek Pinault is an actor, born 1966.
Salma Hayek was already a star in Mexico, carrying the telenovela Teresa for two years and leading the drama Midaq Alley, when she moved to Los Angeles and started again at the bottom. The parts on offer there were the ones an accent got you in the mid-1990s, and Robert Rodriguez is the director who broke that pattern, casting her opposite Antonio Banderas in Desperado and then giving her the most famous entrance in From Dusk Till Dawn.
Frida is the reason the career is taken seriously. She spent years producing it herself, played Kahlo, and became the first Mexican actress nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. None of that was handed to her, and the producing habit stuck; she has developed television as well as film, Ugly Betty included.
The years since divide cleanly. On one side are the broad comedies that pay for everything, Grown Ups and its sequel, The Hitman's Bodyguard, Like a Boss, plus a durable voice career as Kitty Softpaws in the Puss in Boots films. On the other are the performances that show what a serious director can get from her: the queen in Tale of Tales, the wounded and furious dinner guest in Beatriz at Dinner, Pina Auriemma in House of Gucci. She joined the Marvel machine as Ajak in Eternals. She has always been better than the first list, and the industry took thirty years to build her the second.
Movies (70)
- Grown Ups (2010)
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
- Grown Ups 2 (2013)
- From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
- Eternals (2021)
- Desperado (1995)
- Puss in Boots (2011)
- Sausage Party (2016)
- The Faculty (1998)
- The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017)
- Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021)
- Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
- Fled (1996)
- Wild Wild West (1999)
- House of Gucci (2021)
- Four Rooms (1995)
- Tale of Tales (2015)
- Dogma (1999)
- 54 (1998)
- Frida (2002)
- Here Comes the Boom (2012)
- After the Sunset (2004)
- Savages (2012)
- Muppets Most Wanted (2014)
- Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)
- Fools Rush In (1997)
- Across the Universe (2007)
- The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012)
- Bandidas (2006)
TV (8)
Where to start with Salma Hayek Pinault
Begin with Frida, the performance she fought hardest for and the film that explains everything she has done as a producer since.
Beatriz at Dinner is the one to watch next, a small, uncomfortable chamber piece where she plays a woman losing patience with a room full of rich people, and it is her best acting on film.
For the early star-making stretch, Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn are inseparable, made a year apart with the same director, and they still crackle.
House of Gucci is the late scene-stealer, Tale of Tales the strangest thing in her filmography and worth the effort, and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish the family film that is genuinely good rather than merely tolerable. Dogma is the cult pick.
Frida and the dramatic work
She spent years getting Frida made and produced it herself, and the Best Actress nomination that followed is the high point of the career. Beatriz at Dinner is the small late film worth seeking out.
The Rodriguez films
A working relationship going back to Desperado, which made her famous, and taking in the Dusk Till Dawn dance sequence that is probably the single most replayed thing she has done.
The comedies
The commercial half of the filmography, mostly opposite Adam Sandler or in ensembles. She is much funnier than the earlier dramatic casting suggested she would be. They pay for the smaller films and she has never pretended otherwise about why she takes them.
The franchises and voice work
Kitty Softpaws across two Puss in Boots films and Ajak in Eternals are the largest recent roles, and the animation work has become a substantial part of the career.