Salma Hayek: Do I think we are going to get married? Probably

Salma Hayek wears many hats -- actress, producer, activist, and most recently, mother. With the September arrival of Valentina Paloma, her daughter with PPR CEO François-Henri Pinault, the 41-year-old multitasker has more on her plate than ever before.

Sitting down for a Glamour interview in her kitchen with V-Day founder Eve Ensler, Salma nurses her now 5-month-old baby girl and chats about her pregnancy (yes, she did have gestational diabetes), her hopes for Valentina, and just how it is you keep a relationship going when your fiancé lives on the other side of the world.

On the transition to motherhood:

I believe that change keeps you young. I’m a late bloomer; I always have been. I’m 41, and I know a lot of women think that this is the time when you start getting depressed. To that I say, “No, no, no, no, no!” I’m having the best time of my life.

The best thing that’s ever happened to me is this thing that has happened to so many women, which is having a baby. Every second is magical, every smile.

I cannot get enough of it, because I am not sitting here thinking, "What am I going to do with my life?" I’ve already established my career. I think it’s very good to have a child at this age. I’m in a great place.

On her pregnancy:

I really embraced pregnancy. I enjoyed it. It came to me and I said, “OK, this is where I go now.” I had diabetes while I was pregnant. I became huge. And I said, “This is what it takes for me to have this baby, and I really want it.”

Then you don’t know if it’s going to be healthy; you are completely out of control. So the experience really makes you humble.

On what has surprised her most:

Well, I have to confess something -- I wanted a boy. At the beginning I did. Probably because I was afraid. I think women suffer a bit more than boys, and there is always conflict between mothers and daughters.

But now that she’s here, I’m so happy she’s a girl. And I can’t imagine there ever being conflict between us, because I’m in a state of innocence where I love everything she does. If she does a poop and I have to change the diaper, I love that moment!

On how Valentina has changed her personally:

I don’t remember very well who I was before. Part of me feels like it’s so new and so strange to have a baby, and part of me feels like I’ve known [her] face forever. Somehow I am really relaxed within the chaos of having a baby -- and anyone who’s a mother knows it’s very hard to relax, because there is so much to do and worry about!

I just feel so fortunate to be her mother, and it makes me excited about the rest of my life, because I will get to witness her transformation every day. I feel I was born to have this girl.

On how François is with Valentina:

He warned me from the beginning that he gets very nervous when babies are so little -- he thinks he’s going to break them! But he plays with her, sleeps with her, loves her, kisses her. He’s not obsessed like me. But he’s had two [babies] before!

How their relationship works -- François lives in Paris, Salma in LA.

To most women it’s crazy. But every relationship is unique, and in order to make it work you have to be willing to listen -- not only to your partner, but to the relationship itself. You have to be brave enough to say, “This is who we are: We might not look like the perfect couple, or like our parents did, but this is our love story.”

On if she wishes they could be together more often:

Wishing is a good thing. But wishing you could be together more is so much better than wishing you could get the hell away from someone. [laughs]

François is very generous in his respect for me: He not only gets out of my way, but he’s completely supportive. He pushes me in the right direction. He challenges me with a sense of humor.

I feel lucky to have found a man who is so smart and successful in his own right, so there is no competition between us. He understands I was happy and had a great life before I met him.

On if marriage is something she cares about -- she and François are currently engaged:

Right now I am just enjoying my baby. Do I think we are going to get married? Probably. Will it make a difference? I hope not.

I don’t have a need for marriage. You want to grow old with someone, you want to have a partner and to have children -- we have all those things. Some people need the commitment. Maybe we’ll just make the party!

On her hopes for Valentina:

Life will always be a struggle, and we will always have to work on making the world a better place. But then, working at it is what brings people together.

I hope Valentina will be much more involved than I have been, and smarter about it than I was, because she will grow up in the middle of our conversation and it will be a part of her everyday life. I will make sure she has activists and artists to talk to, and she is very lucky in that respect, because I’ve surrounded myself with extraordinary human beings in many different areas. She will grow up listening to conversations that she’ll be privileged to hear.

Perfection is the end of evolution. So there will always be something to work on. And what’s great is that I know she’ll be part of it.


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