Was it a shock coming straight to this film from Frida?
It was a shock. Twelve hours before I started work with Robert, I was playing a cripple. Then, with him, I was jumping off balconies. First, when he told me he was shooting Desperado 2, I said that I couldn’t do it as I was doing Frida. I said he would have to cut me out. To cut a long story short, he waited for me. I just came for the last couple of weeks. That’s why I am a ‘ghost’ in the movie [Hayek only appears in the flashback sequences]. He just told me to improvise when I got there, as I was playing the same role as last time. When I got there, the first thing that happened was he told me to jump out of a window for that stunt. I asked for a stunt woman, but Robert wound me up by saying, “It would be the girl who can’t do the stunts.” So I did it. It was very painful. In the future, I think am going to show it to my grandchildren to show them how fit I was! Q: How did your Oscar nomination affect your career? A: I’m not sure it did. Everyone liked the film, so it was more likely
