Salma Hayek on Getting Motivated for ‘Grown Ups’

Salma Hayek on Getting Motivated for ‘Grown Ups’: "

Salma Hayek plays a fashion designer juggling marriage, motherhood and career in 'Grown Ups.'

While the trailer for the new comedy Grown Ups features the immature antics of five childhood friends who reunite for a weekend getaway at a lakeside house, we discovered there’s more to the movie than frat-boy humor. Not only is it about family, marriage and parenthood, but three women we love — Salma Hayek, Maria Bello and Maya Rudolph — play essential roles.

“Anybody who is a parent knows this world and the emotion of it and the complication and the joy — and the drag of it all,” laughs Bello, who plays Kevin James’ wife. Hayek agrees: “I think women are going to love this one because they’re going to identify with us and our conflicts in our own marriages and our relationships with our children,” she says.

Continuing her run of comedic roles on Ugly Betty and 30 Rock, Hayek, 43, plays a glamorous fashion designer and mother of three married to Adam Sandler’s hotshot Hollywood agent. Wed in real life to French tycoon François-Henri Pinault, Hayek brought her 2-year-old daughter, Valentina, to the Massachusetts location last summer. “Adam makes it the dream environment to bring children. They are so highly entertained that you’re nervous when you get back home. How are you going to entertain your child? They have all kinds of toys and things for them to play,” she reports.

“Having a son and being on the set with all these families and kids added to the whole intimacy of the film and what you see on the screen,” adds Bello, 43, whose 9-year-old son, Jack, played basketball with guys in the cast and crew while she worked. Four years ago, the actress decided to work less during his school year, but the summer production fit both their schedules perfectly.

Rudolph, the real-life mother of two who was pregnant while filming her part as Chris Rock’s wife in the movie, felt right at home in both her role and with the improvisational approach to comedy of her fellow Saturday Night Live alum. “We speak the same language,” says Rudolph, 37, who is quite comfortable in the boys’ club. “I just felt very at home with them. Maybe it’s from having an older brother. I was always trying to make him and his friends laugh.”

Rudolph compares playing pregnant to Robert De Niro’s legendary weight gain for a role. “It’s like a Raging Bull experience. I can eat more to prepare,” she cracked. Hayek, on the other hand, watched what she ate and exercised more, thanks to a poolside scene. “Having to wear a bathing suit in front of the camera and thousands of extras definitely motivates you to work out a little bit,” she says.

What motivates you to get in shape?

Photo credit: Sony Pictures

"