Salma Hayek details traumatic Desperado love scene
In a recent interview, actress Salma Hayek talked about her difficult time filming a love scene in Desperado, one of her first major roles.
In a recent podcast interview, actress Salma Hayek discussed struggling while filming the love scene in the 1995 movie Outlaw. The film, directed by Robert Rodríguez, was the second installment in his “Mexico Trilogy,” which also includes the films El Mariachi and Once upon a time in Mexico, colloquially known as Desperado 2.
Outlaw tells the story of a vigilante in Mexico called El Mariachi, played by Antonio Banderas, who seeks revenge on a drug trafficker who murdered his lover. Although it has a different cast, the film is a follow-up to Rodriguez's 1992 film El Mariachi. Hayek plays Carolina, El Mariachi's new love interest. Together they evade capture, bullets and death, though not without pain and loss of their own. The film was a breakout role for Hayek, being her first major Hollywood film.
Outlaw was also a very graphic movie, which obviously included a lot of violence. However, it was the film's love scene that worried Hayek. In a recent interview on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, Hayek opened up about her traumatic experience filming the scene. She reveals that the love scene wasn't originally in the script, but was "demanded by the studio when they saw the chemistry" between Hayek and Banderas. She points out that even though Banderas and Rodriguez were wonderful about the situation, she still found it unsettling.
«The wife of Robert Rodríguez [the producer, Elizabeth Avellán], at that time, became my best friend. Robert Rodriguez, thank God, he can also do everything on a film set… he can do the sound, he can operate the camera and he was like my brother. So they closed the set and there was Robert, Elizabeth, Antonio and myself”.
Hayek admits that this was nice, but since she hadn't done anything like this before, so when she started filming, she "started sobbing," repeating "I don't know if I can do this" and "I'm afraid I will. "She cited Antonio's free spirit as part of what scared her.
“He was an absolute gentleman and super nice and we are still very good friends. But he was very free. So, she scared me that for him… it was like nothing. And that scared me because she had never been in front of someone like that in that situation. And I started crying and he was like, "My God, you're making me feel terrible." He was so embarrassed that he was crying."
Hayek went on to say that "they were great but they weren't giving up. »Banderas, Rodríguez and Avellán tried to make her laugh so she would take it off, but as soon as she did, she started crying again.
Hayek makes it clear, however, that Banderas and Rodríguez were “amazing” and “magnificent” and that neither of them ever pushed her. Hayek also revealed that the scene was made up of such quick cuts because of her trouble filming and because she couldn't stay in the scene. Hayek admits that, even now, she can't enjoy that scene as she watches it.
She also mentions the double standards imposed on women, admitting that part of the reason she couldn't get into character to get over it is that she was thinking about her father and her brother. When the movie came out, she told them they couldn't watch the scene and she walked them out of the theater while it lasted. She said they were incredibly supportive of her, but she and Shepard commented on the unfair pressures put on women to not only respect themselves, but also protect the egos and reputations of the men in her life.
While no stranger to the world of Hollywood, more and more celebrities are opening up about her traumatic experiences of being vulnerable, and at worst harassed or assaulted, on sets. It is important to hear these stories so that Hollywood can change and adapt. By employing privacy coordinators and other security measures on set, Hollywood has taken steps to ensure experiences like Hayek's on the set of Outlaw are not repeated, so hopefully the industry will continue to grow and adapt.
