In an interview with Academy Award nominee Salma Hayek, Hayek opened up about her role as Elena " La Reina" in Oliver Stone's latest endeavor, "Savages."
In "Savages", Elena plays the ruthless and fashionable leader of a Mexican cartel who goes after two small-time Laguna Beach marijuana dealers (Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson) first trying to bring them into her network of dealers, but then kidnapping their shared girlfriend (Blake Lively) to get them to cooperate.
Hayek told the Hollywood Reporter that she based her intense character on people she met though she wouldn't name anyone in particular. "There was somebody that I got to be friends with who was a very, very, very strong, very powerful woman in Mexico. She has passed away now."
Hayek also told reporters that she got to design her character's look on her own and chose to have Elena wear the same diamond necklace and hairstyle in every scene even though Stone questioned why a millionaire like Elena would want to wear the same accessories every day. She stated, "I tried to explain to him that these women know they are going to be an icon and they create a character."
She added, "These women design themselves. They don't want to be versatile. They want you to always remember them. Hayek also made sure she created a character in a way that somebody could dress up as her for Halloween. "It had to be so identifiable that you could actually impersonate her," she continued.
For many, Hayek's character might seem like a terrifying dictator but the one thing that her character Elena has on her soft side is teenage daughter Magda, played by Mexican actress Sandra Echeverria.
Hayek stated that being a real life mother allowed her to understand not the vulnerability but the "fearlessness".
"As a mother, for your children, you are willing and capable of doing anything." She then continued, "You can justify it. I don't know about some other mothers, but Mexican mothers will do anything for their children."
During the interview Hayek also talked about working with Demian Bichir and Benicio del Toro. She referred to one scene in particular in which Hayek's character gets into an argument with the two men, with the conversation ebbing and flowing from Spanish to English.
Hayek's Elena ends up slapping Del Toro. She said, "You know, it's funny, I slapped him a lot. It was the strangest thing because I was nervous, but Benicio was like, 'Hit me! Hit me! Come on, do it harder!'"
Hayek said the slap scene was one of the moments she got to act out many times and stated, "The strangest thing was that, with every other scene, Oliver wouldn't let me do again. I did one take, which was very frustrating." However for the slap scene she said "we did it 20 times."
Savages open nationwide on July 6th.
The film is rated R for strong brutal and grisly violence, some graphic sexuality, nudity, drug use and strong language throughout.
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