Julie, Salma and 'Frida'

TORONTO (Hispanic PR Wire) March 24, 2007 — Everybody knows that Frida is Salma Hayek's baby. So proclaim the headlines, from Premiere to Parade. Of course, the story of a singular passion fulfilled is, admittedly, too juicy not to swallow whole. It's almost as delicious as the compact storyteller herself, especially when recounted in her fragrantly accented English.

Except that the ambitious biopic about the proto-feminist Mexican painter, bisexual communist and tequila-guzzling party-hearty gal Frida Kahlo, one of Miramax's Oscar hopefuls that opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles, has two mommies.

Yes, Hayek, who's either 34 or 36 but prefers to keep her age "a mystery," makes the artist flesh, and gorgeous flesh it is, too. Her Frida isn't a tortured martyr hooked on suffering. She drowns her sorrows in paint, embraces the joy around her and engages in plenty of sex. Says the Mexican actress: "All the people who knew her that are still alive, all of them talk about her sense of humor, her warmth, her kindness."

But the film's dazzling visual strokes, including 3-D paintings that come alive and form transitions between scenes, reflect the creative DNA of director Julie Taymor, 49, recipient in 1991 of a MacArthur "genius" grant and the brains behind Broadway's groundbreaking incarnation of The Lion King.

"Frida is the product of two people's interaction," says Jay Polstein, one of the film's producers. The prestige production provides both women with the broadest canvas yet to stretch their ample abilities on film.

No matriarchal turf wars broke out, however. Alfred Molina, who plays muralist Diego Rivera, the man and monster who casts a giant shadow over Kahlo's heart and art, assures: "Julie and Salma got on very well. In a way, they were yin and yang to each other, providing what the other didn't have. Wonderful meals always require contrasting ingredients."

Don't totally blame the media for not quite getting it right. For months, a vivacious Hayek has been seducing the press, including the international swarm at the film festival here, with tales of how she struggled to transform the calamitous collage of Kahlo's life into a two-hour movie.

"Those seven years of development I really treasure," says the star and producer, wrapped in sophisticated black and perched in a noisy hotel bar so she can smoke, an on-and-off habit she picked up while under Kahlo's sway. "I could have done it five years ago. But I'm glad we didn't settle and waited."

Injury, infidelity and Trotsky

The facts are practically the stuff of legend by now. Hayek was the last diva standing after Madonna and Jennifer Lopez lost bids to play Kahlo, who rose to icon status after Hayden Herrera's definitive biography came out in 1983. The artist's surreal paintings, shockingly personal exorcisms of pain and strife, now sell for millions of dollars.

Hayek cast beau Edward Norton, who also did a massive script rewrite, and pals such as Ashley Judd and Antonio Banderas at discounted salaries. She scouted shooting locales and begged for financing. She personally wooed Dolores Olmedo Patino, the model, lover and patron of Rivera who owned the rights to his and Kahlo's paintings, and won permission to use reproductions.

The perfectly groomed Revlon model even went pluckless and unshaven to emulate the hirsute Kahlo. Mention her onscreen underarm hair, and she says appreciatively, "I'm so happy you noticed."

That's not all you'll notice. The biopic's dramatic arc is massive, from Kahlo's crippling injuries after a bus crash at age 18 and a tumultuous marriage to serial adulterer Rivera to sundry affairs including a tryst with Russian exile Leon Trotsky before her death in 1954 at 47. A career rebirth is in the offing for Hayek, who often outclasses her bombshell-of-color output, such as the gory vampire thriller From Dusk Till Dawn and the blockbuster misfire Wild Wild West.

But she is the first to appreciate the contributions by Taymor, a stage veteran turned rising filmmaker.

"I'll tell you a secret," Hayek says. "I like to be in charge. But I also like it when I'm not in charge at all, and I relax. Once we got Julie, it was wonderful to shut up and do as I was told. There's nothing better than to let go and concentrate on your acting."

Hayek knew Kahlo the woman inside-out, even telling producer Polstein she was Frida reincarnated. But it takes an artist to truly know an artist. After several Hispanic male directors were considered, including Gregory Nava (Selena) and Walter Salles (Central Station), Miramax co-chief Harvey Weinstein recruited the regal and willowy Taymor, whose only feature so far was 1999's Titus, a visually astute yet over-the-top Shakespearean slaughterhouse.

"Julie does an extraordinary job of making theater out of other people's cultures," Polstein says. The movie's focus on the relationship between Diego and Frida also belies Taymor's intellectual reputation. "The criticism about Titus was usually about it being too cerebral and not emotional. She wanted to prove she could create on film something that was moving."

Taymor was excited by the opportunity to display Kahlo's homeland in a new light, beyond the sombreros and mariachi bands. In the '20s and '30s, "Mexico City was a bohemian mecca for the artists, the intellectuals, the socialists, the communists. It was a great era that we don't see in movies. This is a big love letter to Mexico."

She was less sure about Hayek, not knowing much about her save for her underwhelming résumé. But Taymor was quickly convinced during their first meeting that only she had the right qualities to do the part justice: "Salma's charisma, her passion, her intelligence, everything that once you get past the exterior beauty of this woman, you go, 'My God, what an incredible lady she is.' "

Taymor savored the chance to nurture and observe Hayek's largely untested talents as they bloomed before her. "I'm like a mother with her," she says in the quiet of her hotel room, dressed from peasant top to espadrille toe in the bright blue hue that graces Casa Azul, Kahlo's family hideaway in Mexico City.

"It's great to work with Anthony Hopkins (on Titus), but he's also a great actor. If he fails, you've been a real idiot. But with Salma, I think this is the first time in 30 years as a director where I felt being a woman was an asset and almost a necessity. Because we got very personal with each other."

Hayek admired the way that Taymor used her imagination to propel the drama, not just to plaster the screen with pretty pictures. But she wasn't always certain of her director's choices.

Take the sequence in which Rivera becomes the toast of New York's social whirl while Kahlo finds refuge at the movies. She said of her ego-inflated husband at the time: "He's like a big Mexican piñata with enough candy for everyone." During a fantasy segment, Molina transforms into a human King Kong, clutching Hayek's Fay Wray in his massive paw.

"The King Kong? I was like, no, no, no. I can't see it," Hayek recalls. "And there is Fred (Molina) looking at me. Argh. He's like, 'I hope this works.' But Julie is brilliant. We had a wonderful working relationship, and we developed a very, very nice friendship."

Director delivers her vision

Taymor reveals herself to be a paragon of diplomacy (and shows why Hayek was glad to have her around) as she downplays a much-reported squabble last March with Weinstein, whose operatic girth and occasional outbursts could qualify him as the Diego Rivera of Miramax. Following a screening, the studio honcho supposedly verbally abused the director with demands for edits and changes.

She insists that Frida "is my cut. And I'm very, very happy with it, and so is he. So what we got through were some tough moments, but we both feel very pleased we got there. When you hear the word 'compromise,' you think somebody lost something. No. If I found a way that satisfied me and satisfied him, that was the compromise."

Ultimately, Hayek and Taymor may have more in common than not. They both are proving themselves capable of going beyond the expected with Frida. Already, Taymor is planning her next film project, possibly a non-musical version of The Flying Dutchman.

Like Kahlo, they combine career and romance — while Hayek is with Norton, Taymor has lived with Frida composer Elliot Goldenthal for more than two decades. Says the director: "It's an exceptional thing to be working together as two artists and love what the other one does."

And neither is quite as easy to pigeonhole as they seem. Says Molina: "Julie is very sexy, and Salma is very intelligent. If she had been white and male, she would be as big as Harvey Weinstein now, as successful and prominent."

Hayek is putting the finishing touches on her directorial debut, a religious-themed Showtime movie titled The Malonado Miracle with Ruben Blades and Peter Fonda. That's because she found a new source of inspiration while making Frida: Taymor.

"The movie was offered to me before Frida, and I thought I couldn't do it. I didn't think I could direct. Then I worked with Julie." She went back to Showtime and fiddled with the script. "I realized I was afraid to do it before because I have a hard time with people taking me seriously as an actress, let alone as a director. But Julie gave me the courage."

Once you go through a birth of a baby together, even one named Frida, you can brave anything.