About
Salma Hayek Pinault is a Mexican-born actress, producer, and activist who became one of the most recognizable Latina stars in Hollywood. She first grabbed global attention with the action film Desperado (1995) and later earned an Academy Award nomination for portraying artist Frida Kahlo in Frida (2002). Through the years she has switched easily between drama, comedy, and animation—voicing Kitty Softpaws in the Puss in Boots movies and playing the cosmic leader Ajak in Marvel’s Eternals (2021). In 2025, at 58, she graced the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit issue, celebrating body confidence at every age.
Away from the camera, Hayek runs her own production company, Ventanarosa, which has backed projects such as the award-winning series Ugly Betty. She is also a board member of the Kering Foundation, championing programs that fight violence against women. Her career now spans more than three decades and bridges two cultures, yet she keeps describing herself simply as “a storyteller who loves challenges.”
Before Fame
Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez was born on September 2, 1966, in Coatzacoalcos, a lively oil port on Mexico’s Gulf coast. Her mother, Diana, sang opera; her father, Sami, managed an industrial-equipment business and once ran for local office. With Lebanese heritage on her dad’s side and Spanish roots on her mom’s, Hayek grew up in a multicultural household that prized education and curiosity. At twelve she was sent to a boarding school in Louisiana, where teachers discovered she was dyslexic—something she later said helped her develop fierce determination.
After high school she studied international relations at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, but acting kept pulling her away from textbooks. Local producers cast her in the telenovela Teresa when she was twenty-three. The show became a national obsession and turned Hayek into a household name overnight. In 1991 she made a bold move to Los Angeles with minimal English and no industry contacts, convinced that Hollywood could hold bigger stories for her. The first years were lean, but acting coach Stella Adler and daily language classes strengthened her craft and confidence.
Trivia
- Record-setter: Hayek was the first actress born in Mexico to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
- Marvel matriarch: She insisted that Ajak, the wise leader in Eternals, be portrayed as a strong mother figure—a suggestion director Chloé Zhao welcomed.
- Hidden talent: Years of ballet gave her surprising physical strength, which Robert Rodriguez used for the whip-cracking bar dance in From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).
- Advocate in action: On a UNICEF trip to Sierra Leone in 2009, she breast-fed an undernourished newborn to help the child survive and to spark conversation about infant nutrition.
- Spoken languages: She switches between Spanish, English, and French at home, and learned a line of Nahuatl for Frida.
- Recent milestone: Posing for Sports Illustrated in 2025, she said she hoped other women “feel free to celebrate their curves at any age.”
- Creative partner: She and director Angelina Jolie bonded while shooting Without Blood (2024); the two are already planning another film with Hayek in the director’s chair.
Family Life
Salma married French entrepreneur François-Henri Pinault, CEO of luxury-fashion group Kering, on Valentine’s Day 2009 in Paris and renewed their vows a few months later in Venice. They share one daughter, Valentina Paloma, born in 2007, and Hayek is step-mom to Pinault’s three older children from previous relationships. The family divides time between London, Paris, and a ranch in Washington State, but Hayek often returns to Mexico to spend time with her parents and younger brother, designer Sami Hayek.
Despite hectic schedules, she says ordinary rituals—cooking Veracruz-style seafood, walking the dogs, practicing restorative yoga—keep them grounded. Valentina occasionally appears on red carpets and is already dabbling in photography and fashion design. Hayek jokes that her daughter is her toughest critic and best stylist rolled into one. She also credits Pinault for supporting her activism, including campaigns for women’s rights and indigenous crafts.
Associated With
Hayek’s career is a tapestry woven with long-standing collaborations. Director Robert Rodriguez gave her early Hollywood breaks in Desperado and later cast her in Once Upon a Time in Mexico. She and Antonio Banderas remain friends decades after their guns-blazing debut together. She produced Ugly Betty alongside actress-writer America Ferrera, opening doors for more Latinx stories on U.S. television. Quentin Tarantino wrote her unforgettable vampire dance in From Dusk Till Dawn, and Marvel’s Kevin Feige welcomed her into the superhero universe.
More recently, Hayek teamed up with Angelina Jolie on Without Blood and an upcoming, still-secret project that will mark Hayek’s return to directing. She is also executive-producing a TV adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate, bringing the magical Mexican love story to a new generation. Through every partnership she keeps touting one rule: choose people who respect the story you want to tell. It is a philosophy that has kept her career both adventurous and enduring.
