Salma Hayek wants Arab women in Hollywood

She thinks Hollywood is overlooking Arab women in films, and she's on a mission to remedy that.

Hollywood star Salma Hayek-Pinault told Egyptian daily newspaper this week, Al-Masry Al-Youm, that the Arab woman is absent in foreign movies because filmmakers do not approach her in "fear of causing her problems or causing unintended humiliation."

Filmmakers prefer to produce a film in which an Arab actor plays the villain rather than producing something with an Arab heroine, she said.

Hayek Shutterstock

Hayek produced an animated film adaption of the Khalil Gibran’s famous fiction book, The Prophet, and presented it in the Doha-based Ajyal Youth Film earlier this month.

Hayek said the cast of her film, which was partly financed by the Doha Film Institute, made the story about the human being as opposed to religious and political issues. This has required courage, she said, as the film broke away from tradition.

Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet had nine directors from around the globe and each director had the freedom to produce a chapter of the story in they pleased.

Hayek also accepted to play the role of an Egyptian woman in a new movie; but details about the movies are unavailable.