Salma Hayek is a big star. When she speaks, people listen. Well, she’s speaking on Harvey Weinstein. And we should all listen.
Writing an opinion piece for the The New York Times, Hayek opened up about her interactions with Weinstein. And boy is there some fascinating stuff.
Let’s get all the boring stuff out of the way. Hayek wanted to make a movie about the life of Frida Kahlo. She wanted to make the movie under the Weinstein/Miramax banner because they have become synonymous with quality. Minus all those Ben Affleck movies.
She signed a deal with Weinstein to get the movie made and it all seemed to be going well. Until, Weinstein turned out to be a creepy old dude who liked to rape actresses.
I thought my dream had come true. He had validated the last 14 years of my life. He had taken a chance on me — a nobody. He had said yes.
Little did I know it would become my turn to say no.
No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn’t even involved with.
No to me taking a shower with him.
No to letting him watch me take a shower.
No to letting him give me a massage.
No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage.
No to letting him give me oral sex.
No to my getting naked with another woman.
No, no, no, no, no …
Sometimes, persistence does not pay off, folks.
I don’t think he hated anything more than the word “no.” The absurdity of his demands went from getting a furious call in the middle of the night asking me to fire my agent for a fight he was having with him about a different movie with a different client to physically dragging me out of the opening gala of the Venice Film Festival, which was in honor of “Frida,” so I could hang out at his private party with him and some women I thought were models but I was told later were high-priced prostitutes.
The range of his persuasion tactics went from sweet-talking me to that one time when, in an attack of fury, he said the terrifying words, “I will kill you, don’t think I can’t.”
Weinstein tried to take Frida away from her, but she was able to rewrite the script (thanks to Edward Norton), raise $10 million to finance the film, attach an A-list director, and cast four prominent actors.
Hayek accomplished all of those things, which only pissed off Weinstein.
The only thing he noticed was that I was not sexy in the movie. He made me doubt if I was any good as an actress, but he never succeeded in making me think that the film was not worth making.
He offered me one option to continue. He would let me finish the film if I agreed to do a sex scene with another woman. And he demanded full-frontal nudity.
Hayek agreed to do the scene in order to save the movie.
The movie was a success, Weinstein apologized years later, and then Hayek talks about things no being equal in Hollywood.
The whole read is fascinating and goes to show the kind of manipulation and pull Weinstein had over, even big time movie stars. Hayek had been in Wild Wild West, Desperado, and Dogma by that point. Ashley Judd was a big star. Edward Norton was a big star. Antonio Banderas was a big star. This movie should have had no issues.
So, yeah. Harvey Weinstein sucks.