Salma Hayek recalls ‘terrifying’ Magic Mike rehearsal with co-star Channing Tatum

Salma Hayek has said she was ‘terrified’ recording an acrobatic dance scene with Magic Mike co-star Channing Tatum.

Speaking on The Graham Norton Show on Friday (10 February), Hayek recalled a rehearsal for the forthcoming film Magic Mike’s Last Dance, in which her trousers were falling down and she couldn’t “remember” if she had underwear on.

“I was terrified,” Hayek said of recording intimate dance scenes with Tatum, who plays a retired male exotic dancer.

“You have to make it look easy but sometimes you need strength in your body that I don’t have because I don’t work out,” she said.

“One time we were rehearsing and I had to put my legs in a specific position and [it was] hard.”

“I was upside down and I forgot it was coming because when you’re upside down you’re very confused,” she said.

Hayek then revealed that Tatum tried to “grab” her, as part of the choreography, accidentally pulling on her sweatpants, before she realised she may not be wearing any underwear.

“Then I couldn’t remember if I had underwear on or not and they were coming off,” she explained on the show. “So I was like holding onto my sweatpants and he was like ‘put your hands on the floor’ and I was like ‘no!’”

“And finally some people came to my rescue and took me but I was close to the ground and half of my pants were down,” she said.

Hayek plays Maxandra Mendoza in the new Magic Mike film, a wealthy recent divorcee who persuades Mike to perform one last time at a London theatre she acquires in her divorce settlement. The third and final film in the Magic Mike trilogy releases on Tuesday (14 February).

The actor has recently spoken out about being “typecast” in the early stages of her career meant that she wasn’t able to star in a comedy until she was in her forties.

Although she has been able to star in a variety of projects since the nineties, Hayek has recalled a time when she was only considered for roles that highlighted “sexiness” as a key quality.

“I was typecast for a long time,” she told GQ in an interview published on Monday (6 February). “My entire life I wanted to do comedy and people wouldn’t give me comedies.”

Referring to the 2010 comedy Grown Ups, Hayek then explained that it was the first time she’d been allowed to show her funnier side on screen.

“I couldn’t land a [comedic] role until I met Adam Sandler, who put me in a comedy, but I was in my forties!” she continued.

“They said, ‘You’re sexy, so you’re not allowed to have a sense of humour’... Not only are you not allowed to be smart, but you were not allowed to be funny in the nineties.”