BEVERLY HILLS -- Salma Hayek insists she has
a sense of humor.
It's just not the same sense of humor as Friends star
Matthew Perry who romances her in the comedy
Fools Rush In.
And therein lies the problem.
Hayek was quoted in a recent interview saying
Perry was a jerk. He retaliated by insisting English
is not her first language so she was probably trying
to give him a compliment.
Hayek has a different explanation.
"In the interview, I said the character that Matthew
plays in the film is a jerk. Then I pointed out that
Matthew's real father (John Bennett Perry) plays
his father in the film. I added that was perfect
casting.
"The reporter skipped from my saying Matthew's
character was a jerk to my saying it was perfect
casting."
That's not to say Hayek and Perry didn't have their
rough moments.
"We were filming in Las Vegas. Even for the night
shoots, it was unbearably hot. Matthew loves to tell
knock-knock jokes.
"I'd never heard those kind of jokes but he can be
pretty persistent. It got annoying after a while.
"Just because I didn't like his jokes doesn't mean I
didn't like him.
"We gave each other a hard time but that's par for
being friends and co-wokers."
Hayek quickly adds that she and Perry are actually
"more than friends. We're neighbors. He lives four
houses away from me.
"I see him every day on the way to work. It would
be foolish of me to make an enemy of him. He
could come over and stomp all over my
flowerbeds."
Hayek concedes the feuding scenario is just the
latest in a series of rumors that greeted her screen
pairing with Friends' Chandler Bing.
"I also got accused of taking Matt away from Julia
Roberts. There were all these rumors that he and I
were having a heated affair in Las Vegas and that's
what caused Julia to walk out on him.
"I think the reality is that Matthew and I are the first
two people making a romantic comedy who didn't
actually have a bit of a thing, so people had to
make up stories about us.
"They had to assume we were enemies if we
weren't lovers."
Hayek admits it would have been a bit of a boon
had there been some off-camera sparks between
her and Perry.
"I haven't dated seriously in so long that I'm afraid
I've forgotten how."
Since she left her native Mexico in 1990 to pursue
a film career in Hollywood, Hayek has been too
busy in front of the cameras to have a consuming
private life.
A cameo role on the cable TV series Dream On
led to a recurring role on Sinbad and eventually to a
string of films including Mi Vida Loca, From Dusk
To Dawn, Desperado and Fled.
She just completed filming a version of The
Hunchback of Notre Dame for cable TV in which
she plays the gypsy Esmeralda opposite Mandy
Patinkin's Quasimodo.
Hayek has pursued her role in Fools Rush In for
five years.
"The moment I read it, I knew I had to do the part.
It's a film that really knows the soul of a Latino
woman. It's based on a true story of a Mexican
woman and an American man who got married
because she was pregnant."
The film opens Feb. 14.
"It's honest and gritty as well as funny and romantic
and there are very few of those kind of roles out
there for Latino women."
Before Hayek came to America, she was a major
soap opera star in Mexico.
