The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people from all walks of life, including celebrities. Some famous figures, like Tom Hanks, caught coronavirus and were able to recover, while others, like Blue Bloods actor Nick Cordero, passed away after catching the disease. Eternals actress Salma Hayek falls into the former category, but it turns out she came incredibly close to joining the latter category last year.
During an interview with Variety, Salma Hayek revealed that she caught COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic, and spent the better part of 2020 recovering from the coronavirus. As the actress recalled:
My doctor begged me to go to the hospital because it was so bad. I said, ‘No, thank you. I’d rather die at home.’
Salma Hayek’s coronavirus struggle got bad enough that she spent about seven weeks isolated in a room in her house, and at one point was put on oxygen. While Hayek has been on the mend for some time now, she noted that she still hasn’t regained the energy she had before contracting COVID-19. Since this is the first we’re hearing of Hayek’s health struggle, it’s pretty shocking to learn that she came incredibly close to dying.
Fortunately, things didn’t get that bad, and not only is Salma Hayek still breathing, she’s also returned to working. Her first post-COVID-19 project was Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, the movie that follows Lady Gaga’s Patrizia Reggiani ordering the assassination of her ex-husband, Adam Driver’s Maurizio Gucci, the head of the Gucci fashion house. Hayek plays Giuseppina Auriemma, a clairvoyant who was convicted of helping Reggiani, and here’s what she had to say about working on House of Gucci following her COVID experience:
It was not a lot of time. It was easy. It was the perfect job to just get back into it. I had started doing Zooms at one point, but I could only do so many because I would get so tired.
We’ll see how Salma Hayek’s performance in House of Gucci turns out when the movie comes out in November, but before then, you’ll be able to see some of the work she completed before she dealt with COVID-19. First up, we’ll see her in The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard reprising Sonia Kincaid, who briefly appeared in The Hitman’s Bodyguard, but is now taking center stage alongside Ryan Reynolds’ Michael Bryce and Samuel L. Jackson’s Darius Kincaid. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard was originally supposed to come out in 2020, but like so many movies, it was pushed back in response to the spreading coronavirus, and will now arrive in theaters on June 16.
Then on November 5, Salma Hayek will make her comic book movie debut in Eternals, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 26th theatrical entry. Hayek plays the leader of the eponymous group of beings, Ajak, who can channel cosmic energy to heal others and is also capable of communicating with the Celestials. Hayek is joined in Eternals by Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani and Brian Tyree Henry, among others. She’s also hoping that within the next year, she’ll be able to direct a “small film” based on a script she wrote 17 years ago.
Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on Salma Hayek’s professional and personal lives. Her most recent movie, Bliss, is playing on Amazon Prime Video.
