We love throwing dinner parties, and we always invite Salma Hayek, but for whatever reason she never comes. She was in town on Monday promoting her new movie, “Beatriz at Dinner.” Deco’s Chris Van Vliet talked with her and joins us with tonight’s main course.
What happens when you’re at a dinner party and the conversation gets a little awkward? Usually you change the subject and move on. That’s so not the case in Salma’s new film. I chatted with her in Miami, along with the film’s director.
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “Can I get another bourbon, hon?”
Jay Duplass (as Alex): “Oh, no, Doug, this is Beatriz. She’s staying for dinner.”
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “Oh. You were hovering. I just figured you were part of the staff.”
In “Beatriz at Dinner,” Salma Hayek is Beatriz, an immigrant from a small town in Mexico who works as a healer in Los Angeles. When her car breaks down, she is reluctantly invited to stay for a dinner party celebrating a billionaire businessman.
Salma Hayek (as Beatriz): “When I first came to the United States…”
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “Did you come legally?”
Salma Hayek (as Beatriz): “Yes.”
Chris Van Vliet: “Salma, when you first read this, can you tell me what you first thought about Beatriz?”
Salma Hayek: “I was really moved by her. I immediately wanted to play her. I could not wait until I could get into her skin.”
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “The world doesn’t need your feelings. It needs jobs, it needs money, it needs what I do.”
Salma Hayek (as Beatriz): “It doesn’t need you.”
Connie Britton (as Cathy): “Doug is a great philanthropist.”
Salma Hayek (as Beatriz): “Shut up, Cathy.”
To make it as tense and as authentic as possible, Salma tells me, she kept her distance from her castmates.
Salma Hayek: “I tried to stay a little bit away from the others in between the scenes, and really stay like in a meditative space, so that I could really observe everything from a different place.”
Things at dinner boil over when Beatriz realizes her values don’t line up with the other guests — especially John Lithgow’s character.
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “I don’t consider it murder. It’s like this original dance of man and beast, the struggle for survival.”
Salma Hayek (as Beatriz): “Are you for real? You killed this.”
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): (laughs)
Salma Hayek: “You think it’s funny? I think it’s sick.”
Director Miguel Arteta says the movie’s villain was inspired by another billionaire.
Salma Hayek (as Beatriz): “So, Doug, you build hotels?”
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “I just own them.”
Salma Hayek (as Beatriz): “I always had inside me the desire to be a healer.”
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “Good for you. You’re working.”
Chris Van Vliet: “The timing of the movie is, obviously, perfect for the world that we live in now and the America that we live in right now. Was John Lithgow’s character at all influenced by our president?”
Miguel Arteta: “Maybe slightly. Donald Trump decided to run for president and said horrible things about Mexicans, so I think it was kind of a combination of this very bad state of the world becoming more and more separated.”
John Lithgow (as Doug Strutt): “This can’t possibly end well.”
Salma was telling me how different of a look that was for her, from the bangs to the Mom jeans.
“Beatriz at Dinner” opens in South Florida theaters June 16.
Copyright 2025 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.