Alfred Molina Recalls Harvey Weinstein’s “Preposterous” Reaction to Salma Hayek’s ‘Frida’ Performance

Alfred Molina says he saw Harvey Weinstein scold Salma Hayek on the set of Fridawith the former Hollywood producer and convicted rapist also turning his back on him after Molina compared Hayek’s business prowess to the producer.

The actor, who told the independent in a recent interview that did not witness any assault, he discussed Weinstein’s behavior on the film’s set, specifically an “absurd” instance in which Weinstein went on a rampage over Hayek’s performance.

After the disgraced former producer visited the Mexico set, he called the film’s crew members “one by one” to his suite, where the actor says he “basically read us the riot act.”

“He had seen some reeds and he was not happy with what he had seen,” Molina added.

During their conversation, the actor, who played Diego Rivera, said Weinstein proceeded to complain about how well Hayek embodied the late legendary Mexican artist. “He said, ‘Alfred. What the hell is going on? he remembered. “I have hired the best actors. I have hired Salma Hayek. She is one of the best actresses in the world. And what do I see on the screen? Nothing but Frida, Frida, Frida!’”

Molina was filled with disbelief. “I remember thinking, ‘Well, that’s the fucking point, right?’” he told the outlet. “What he was talking about, of course, was that she wasn’t playing ‘sexy.’ She wasn’t playing this beautiful Latina, this hot tamale. She was playing Frida.”

The actor noted that Hayek faced many complications in the production of that film, but that “in the face of great resistance from Miramax, in terms of the people he wanted in the film, he stood up and fought for everyone. me included. She was loyal to a fault.

In a 2021 interview with The GuardianHayek, who had previously addressed Weinstein’s various forms of harassment in a New York Times Op-Ed: He addressed his startup experience, recounting a similar reaction from Weinstein.

“I felt good [when he bullied me]. ok i would shake [afterwards] and it depressed me, but there was a cartoon aspect to the whole thing,” Hayek said. “When he called me [during the making of ‘Frida’] and yell, ‘Why do you have a [monobrow] and mustache? I didn’t hire you to make you look ugly! I was like, ‘But you’ve never looked at a picture of Frida Kahlo?’ If a man were playing Cyrano de Bergerac, he wouldn’t say, ‘What’s with the nose?’”

Around the release of the film, Molina, while speaking with elle for a November 2015 cover story featuring Hayek, he claimed that the Frida The star’s creative and business prowess would have made him a powerhouse in Hollywood if he were a white man.

“I have said that if Salma had been white and male, she would have been bigger than Harvey Weinstein,” he told the magazine at the time. “I still believe that. Salma is a great businesswoman; she is creative in a way that surprises people.”

The comment, which was posted before the release of the #MeToo movement and Weinstein’s fallout, reportedly angered the producer, which Molina found out through an interaction with Weinstein after he made the comment.

“There were four of us sitting at the table. Sam Rockwell, myself and a couple of other hunky actors. And Harvey Weinstein came in. He shook everyone’s hand. Sam, then the next guy, then the next guy. And when he got to me… he just kept walking. He totally blanked me out,” the actor recounted. “Sam Rockwell is on one end and I’m on the other end, and Sam’s like, ‘What the hell did you do?’”

the hollywood reporter has contacted representatives for Rockwell and Weinstein.

Elsewhere in the interview, Molina also addressed his earlier stance on straight actors playing gay people, after playing playwright Joe Orton’s partner Kenneth Halliwell in 1987. prick up your ears, and another gay man with John Lithgow in 2014 Love is Strange.

The actor says his previous position, that “sexual orientation is irrelevant in terms of playing the character,” still stands. “I’m not trying to pretend to be something I’m not, you know. I am a white cisgender heterosexual,” he said. “It’s the very act of asking the question that I think is inappropriate.”