Prior to joining Black Mirror’s sixth season, Salma Hayek Pinault had never really seen the dystopian anthology series. “Black Mirror was a show everybody was talking to me about, but I get really scared of anything horror. I don’t watch, because then I don’t sleep,” she says. After being asked to join the series’ latest season, the 56-year-old actor “built up the courage” to dig into a few episodes, and liked what she saw. In a highly meta storyline, Hayek Pinault plays a version of herself, an actor who is playing an AI-written version of a character played by Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy. For a show that’s famous for predicting the terrifying consequences of modern technology, the disturbing premise was particularly prescient. Not long after the episode’s June 15th premiere, Hollywood screeched to a halt due to a strike that, among other demands, hopes to address the looming prospect of AI. Here, the industry legend discusses how she got her start on television and the progress she’s seen in Hollywood so far.
This interview was conducted prior to the start of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.
Do you watch a lot of television in general?
I watch a lot of TV. I think I have become addicted to it. I try to make a point of going on a television diet from time to time, and I always really miss it. Sometimes I watch everything. But I was a person who never watched TV in the ’90s or the 2000s.
What were some of your favorite shows this year?
One, Beef. I am obsessed. I think I'm going to watch it again. And The Last of Us. It took me a while because this is not the kind of thing I normally watch. The human relationships are so interesting and complex. I have one favorite episode that is probably everybody's favorite, which is the one about the gay couple. That was brilliant.
Gucci dress and shoes; Material Good earrings.
You began your career on television—telenovelas, right?
I started my career in telenovelas a long time ago. I only did two. But I was very lucky because they were very successful. The telenovela that kind of made me a star was unusual, because my character was the good girl and the bad girl. It was not two different characters, and she was not bipolar. Although now that I think about it, maybe she was.
Have you ever read a script with a male character that you wanted to play?
When I first started, I was very attracted to all the male characters in the movies. Not because I was attracted to the actors. I wanted to play those characters. It's not that I am insecure about my sexuality as a woman; it's just that they were the only good characters in the scripts. But we've come a long way, and now there's a lot of great characters for women. I'm just so lucky that I lived to survive in this industry, to see this day and participate in it.
From Dusk Till Dawn was a big moment for you.
It was a very, very small part. I had to be in a bikini for half of the small time that I was on-screen, and I had to dance with a snake, which I have a phobia for. So it seemed like a really bad job, but that I really needed at the time. I was really shocked when my five minutes on-screen became so memorable and that people are still talking about this film. Not to mention that this was also a little bit of a horror movie, which...
Yeah, you don't like that.
Not my thing. I was afraid of the monsters that I had seen going to the makeup trailer. I knew it was prosthetics, but they would still freak me out. I was freaked out by my own mask when I turned into a monster and I saw [myself] in the mirror. And now I'm on Black Mirror.
Do you remember your first red carpet experience?
I didn't have any connections. The only connection I had was to somebody I knew at Hugo Boss, so I wore a man’s suit because no one else gave me anything to wear.
Where was your first kiss?
In Coatzacoalcos, my little town in Mexico. It was very memorable. I wanted to taste good, so I kept putting honey on my lips. And then I said, "What did it taste like?" And he said, "Like honey," but it's the cliché—that's what they say. And so I kept putting honey in my lips, and I had an infestation of ants in my bedroom. I burnt my mouth. Something that started real romantic turned out to be kind of disastrous.
So you had ants crawling on your lips?
Yeah.
You made your own horror movie.
In Mexico, we eat ant eggs fried in a special way. But live ants, it's a whole different thing.
Hair by Renato Campora for Sisley-Paris at The Wall Group; makeup by Genevieve Herr for Lancôme at Sally Harlor; manicure by Honey at Exposure NY for NAVYA Nail Lacquer; Set Design by Spencer Vrooman.
Produced by AP Studio, Inc.; Executive Producer: Alexis Piqueras; Producer: Anneliese Kristedja; Production Managers: Anna Blundell, David Duque-Estrada; Production Coordinator: Ellen Kozarits; Photo Assistants: Matt Yoscary, Josua Jimenez; Retouching: Matty So; Fashion Assistants: Tori López, Tyler VanVranken, India Reed, Tori Leung; Production Assistants: Linette Estrella, Ariana Kristedja, Alan Bell, Nico Marti, Ryan Qiu; Hair assistant: Sinaia Campora; Manicure Assistant: Shani Newsome; Tailor: Lindsay Wright; Set Design Assistants: Will Cragoe, Christina O'Neil, Joseph Ahern.
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