Alfred Molina recalls Weinstein berating Salma Hayek on 'Frida' set as she wasn't 'playing sexy'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Actor Alfred Molina has claimed he witnessed Harvey Weinstein berating Salma Hayek on the sets of 2002 movie 'Frida', with the disgraced Hollywood producer and convicted rapist also giving him the silent treatment after he said in 2015 “if Salma had been white and male, she would have been bigger than Harvey Weinstein."
Writing for The New York Times in 2017, Hayek had alleged that Weinstein had sexually harassed her, bullied her and pressured her into including a full-frontal lesbian sex scene in the film. “In his eyes, I was not an artist. I wasn’t even a person. I was a thing: not a nobody, but a body,” she wrote.
The actor discussed Weinstein's behavior on the set of the movie, in particular, one "preposterous" incident in which Weinstein became upset about Hayek's excellent performance. In a recent interview, the actor told The Independent that he did not see any assaults. The actor claimed that once the disgraced former producer visited the Mexico set, and summoned the cast and crew "one by one" to his suite, where "he basically read the riot act to us."
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Molina said the producer had seen some rushes and "wasn't happy with what he had seen." The actor, who played Diego Rivera, claimed that Weinstein complained about how brilliantly Hayek portrayed the late and illustrious Mexican artist during their talk. "He said, 'Alfred. What the fuck's going on?'" he recalled. "'I've hired the best actors. I've hired Salma Hayek. She's one of the best actors in the world. And what do I see on screen? Nothing but Frida, Frida, Frida!'"
Molina said he was in a state of shock by Weinstein's assessment. He told the outlet, "I remember thinking, 'Well, that's the whole fucking point, isn't it?'"
"He was obviously referring to the fact that she wasn't acting sexually. She wasn't portraying this exotic beauty or this sizzling tamale. She was performing as Frida. What he was talking about, of course, was she wasn't playing 'sexy.' She wasn't playing this gorgeous Latina, this hot tamale. She was playing Frida."
The actor stated that Hayek encountered numerous challenges while filming for the picture. "In the face of a lot of resistance from Miramax, in terms of the people she wanted in the movie, she stood up against it and fought for everyone — me included. She was loyal to a fault."
The number of women who have accused Weinstein of sexual wrongdoing has surpassed 50, and is rising daily.