Salma Hayek, sultry stripper and celestial muse in ‘Dogma’, joins Film ‘99 in the confessional.
Film 99: Your character is responsible for creative inspiration,
what is she proud of inspiring?
Salma Hayek: Well, she inspires everybody, maybe not from
the beginning of the film, because the beginning of the film starts
when she says "Okay, I’m not going to do this anymore because I’ve
been inspiring all these people and nobody gives me credit for it."
So she goes to them and asks for permission to come to earth to
try her own thing and find fortune as a writer. So she’s not supposed
to be acting as a muse, but because she gets writer's block, and
things are not going so good, somehow she ends up part of this celestial
adventure to save the world. She’s more of a warrior than a muse
although she does use some of her muse’s abilities here and there
to advance this adventure.
It’s
very much a boy’s world that Kevin Smith creates, is that something
you were aware of?
I’ve done
so many films which are based on boy’s world. However I think
Kevin does a very good job of writing female parts which is very
rare, and that is refreshing because we are always looking most
of the time to make it work so that you can be an actual human being
instead of some caricature of a woman, and although this film is
a caricature, the females are pretty strong in this one, starting
with God.
Absolutely,
it seems to me to be quite daring script to come out of America.
I don’t know if you’re aware of the religious satires,
but I haven’t really seen something like this come out of the
States before, did that strike you when you read the script?
Yes, I thought
it was very brave, but mostly I thought it was very funny, and I
thought it was great to have a comedy which has such complex characters,
and these complex characters had great dialogues that were ingenious
and witty and at some points, philosophical.
You’re
also at Cannes this year with another film, I don’t think there
could be two films more extreme, could you tell us a little of your
experience?
Oh God. A completely
different experience, the other film I shot down in New Mexico with
Arturo Ripstein. For the last 5 years I think he has done most of
his films in one-shot scenes. I shot one scene, which was 5 minutes,
and there was not one cut the whole time the camera is moving. So
you have to have a very good sense of the space and of the rhythm
and it is a whole different process. It is also a period piece where
I play a prostitute who’s love of her life has been killed
and she’s blamed for it. This woman is full of the things humanity
does not have for her like compassion and love, so it’s a very
sad. It’s a film full of humanity. Here is very modern, I play
a muse, so she’s not human to begin with because she’s
some kind of celestial creature who’s a little bit flamboyant
and lacks all source of reality. Although I have to say I find,
that although she has an attitude towards human beings, she has
a lot of weaknesses that human beings have, and this is what makes
her so funny, but it could not be so different one film from another.
I think at
the beginning she’s had a bit of body work done, is that correct?
God has given
her, I don’t know if this is a bad word, because I learn English
from the streets, God has given her tits because anatomically these
creatures have no sex, as you can see from the Alan Rickman character.
So because she is coming to earth she has to deal with this you
know…she has boobs in the film.
Were you
aware of Kevin Smith’s work before, had you heard of him and
was this why you were keen to work with him?
Yes, tracing
him, that was very, very good.
And just
one last question, I believe we’re going to see you in a couple
of big films.
Well you’ve
seen me in ‘Wild Wild West’, and you’ll see me in
a tiny little film I did called the ‘Velocity of Gary’,
it’s an independent film, and I saw a film on Monday called
‘Shiny New Enemies’.
