Salma Hayek: Directors Wanted Me to Sound Dumb

There is more to Salma Hayek than just her looks. She is also intelligent and talented but when she was an emerging actress several directors asked her to downplay those traits to fit a specific mold — specially to sound dumber. The 53-year-old "Frida" star opened up about her experiences in a recent interview with Total Film.

"I’ve had directors say to me, ‘Dumber and faster. Sound dumber and speak faster,'" Hayek said, according to Daily Mail.

Hayek worked with a strict teacher to hone her skills as an actress while still living in Mexico, but much of what she learned was lost on directors who did not want her to use her talents.

"Unfortunately, I never had a lot of chances to do parts where I could use a lot of the things I learned," she recalled. "Or you learn them and they don't let you."

It was frustrating for Hayek, who "would never miss a class" when learning to act.

"One time, one of the people in the class didn’t come and showed up after three days with a paper from the doctor," Hayek said. Their teacher queried whether the doctor's note was his "death certificate."

"You can walk out and never come back. If you’re doing theatre will you go to the audience and say you were sick? You were not sick enough," he told the student. "If you were in the hospital, I’d understand, but two days in bed… don’t show up with that paper to my class. This is not a joke. You are either committed to this class or you don’t belong here."

Another time their teacher refused to let Hayek onto the stage for two weeks because she did not "sweep correctly." It taught her to be aware of how she was portraying her characters.

"You have to do the research about every single detail. You have to love every single prop,'" she said.

Hayek previously spoke about Latinos being portrayed according to a specific stereotype. When being honored at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Gala several years ago, she said she hoped to change the way "some people still perceive Hispanics, " according to the Huffington Post.

"I don’t want them to see us as people who have come to this country just to receive because the truth is that Latinos have contributed to building the United States as well as the cultural and ethnic richness that characterizes it," she said.