Salma Hayek was in the hot seat on Red Table Talk this week, but a few years back, she sat in the director’s seat for one of host Jada Pinkett Smith’s music videos.
Smith identified the Oscar-nominated actress — whom she met when they were both auditioning for a main role in the 1999 sci-fi film The Matrix that ultimately went to Carrie-Anne Moss — as one of three women who inspired her to start the Facebook Watch series three years ago. She also recalled calling Hayek to direct a music video for Smith’s 2012 song “Nada Se Compara,” which she wrote and recorded in Spanish to advocate against human trafficking.
“Her Spanish was perfect, her Spanish was like impeccable,” the Mexican-American superstar recalls. And while Hayek was in shock over Smith’s lingual ability, the Red Table Talk host remembers being shocked that Hayek would do the job under one condition: “She said only if I did it naked,” Smith recalled.
“It’s a love song about sex trafficking, and the stories about trusting a man that destroys you, luring you into sex trafficking. And I said, ‘I think it’s important that you are as vulnerable as these women,’ because the obsession that men have with women’s bodies, it’s really threatening for us,” The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard actress explained of her request. “And so she accepted to be as naked with her body as she was with her voice. And so she was very brave, she had never done it before.”
Smith recorded “Nada Se Compara” with her band Wicked Wisdom as part of the Don’t Sell Bodies campaign that fights against human trafficking on a global scale.
Watch Hayek’s Red Table Talk episode below.
