Salma Hayek Pinault has some thoughts about getting older. It's no secret that Hollywood has an iffy history with disposing of female actors after they reach the age of 40, but a new wave of A-listers like Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Angelina Jolie are proving that with age comes not only wisdom but enduring glamour and talent. And at the forefront of this promising movement is Salma Hayek Pinault, who at 56 years old is starring opposite heartthrob Channing Tatum in an early contender for the sexiest movie of 2023: Magic Mike's Last Dance. In her recent Glamour cover interview, the Oscar-nominated actor opened up about how nothing about getting older is as she thought it would be…in the very best way.
“I thought getting older meant I wasn’t going to work; I’m working. I thought getting older maybe meant that you’re not in love anymore; I’m in love,” said Hayek Pinault, who married French billionaire François-Henri Pinault in 2009. Adding that “everything” about aging is different from what she expected, she said, “I don’t feel that I lost my flexibility or my agility or even my strength. I do have to say that I have found it beautiful, getting older with someone.”
IN MMLD, Hayek Pinault plays Maxandra, a woman who is trying to find love and purpose again after her marriage falls apart. “She’s a middle-aged woman who doesn’t want to get any older without knowing what her potential is…. I felt like a lot of women would identify with that,” she told us, adding that the question of accomplishment and potential haunts women throughout adulthood. “I remember having an existential crisis as I arrived in my 30s. It’s like, ‘Oh my God. I’m just not going to accomplish all my plans ever, it’s never going to happen for me. I have nothing, no husband, no children.’ And especially for the women of my generation, it was like, ‘If I don’t have a child in five minutes, I’m not going to be able to be a mother.’ Now the clock is not as strict as we thought.”
In addition to extending our fertility timelines, the modern era has allowed women over “a certain age” to remain movie stars. “In terms of Hollywood, yeah, it’s changing,” said Hayek Pinault, reflecting, “I was also told that, as an actress, you kind of stop working around 30. Imagine? I did really feel it at the time, and it’s unfair. If I had said instead to myself, ‘Don’t worry, your best professional moments are going to be in your 50s,’ I would have been devastated: ‘Oh my God, do I have to wait that long?’ But it’ll happen.”
Now that it has happened, she says, she's just grateful for over three decades in the business: “Hell, I’m still going. Shocker. I’m still here. They tried to get rid of me a thousand ways; I’m still here.”
