Hollywood blocked me from starring funny in films because of her ‘sexy’ image: Says Salma Hayek

Los Angeles: Salma Hayek revealed in a new interview with GQ UK that Hollywood blocked her from starring in a comedy for nearly 20 years because she was deemed too sexy for the genre, says ‘Variety’. Although Hayek acted in romantic comedies such as 1997’s ‘Fools Rush In’ (opposite Matthew Perry) and ‘Breaking Up’ (opposite Russell Crowe), she said it wasn’t until 2010’s ‘Grown-Ups’ that she got the chance to star in a traditional comedy movie. Hayek credited Adam Sandler with finally giving her the chance to be funny.

‘I was typecast for a long time’, Hayek told GQ UK, according to ‘Variety’. ‘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 humor.’ Not only are you not allowed to be smart, but you were not allowed to be funny in the ’90s’.

Did being blocked by acting in comedies make Hayek angry? ‘I was sad at the time’, she said. ‘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’.

Hayek, notes ‘Variety’, is back in romance mode for her new movie, Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’. In the final installment in the ‘Magic Mike’ franchise, Hayek plays the older love interest of Channing Tatum’s eponymous stripper. Her character, Maxandra Mendoza, works with Mike to create a male stripper revue.