Salma Hayek On Filming First Love Scene Ever: ‘I Started To Sob’

Salma Hayek recently opened up about filming her very first sex scene — and explained why she couldn’t stop crying during it.

Hayek has a steamy love scene with Antonio Banderas in the 1995 movie “Desperado.” But she wasn’t aware that the Robert Rodriguez-directed film had such a scene until after production began, she told Dax Shepard and Monica Padman on an episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast released this week. 

“When we were going to start shooting, I started to sob,” she said. 

Upon finding out she’d be expected to film a sex scene, she said she could only do so on a closed set. Only Banderas, Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellán — Rodriguez’s wife, a producer Hayek referred to as a “best friend” — were on the set with her at the time. She told them she wasn’t sure if she could do the scene and that she was “afraid.”

Hayek also said Banderas intimidated her because he was “very free,” although she added that he was “amazing” and “an absolute gentleman.”

“It scared me that for him, it was like nothing,” she said. “I started crying, and he was like, ‘Oh my God. You’re making me feel terrible.’ … And I was so embarrassed that I was crying.”

Despite the moment being quite traumatic for her, Hayek said the team “got through it” and “did the best with what we could do at the time.” Rodriguez ultimately put the scene together with quick cuts in an effort to best use the takes they filmed.

The actor also said she was nervous because she kept thinking about her father and brother.

“Are they going to see it? And are they going to get teased? Guys don’t have that,” Hayek told Shepard and Padman. “Your father will be, ‘Yeah! That’s my son!’”

She said she escorted her father and brother out of the theater during that scene when they finally saw the movie. 

“You want your father to be nothing but proud of you,” she said.

You can listen to the entire interview above.