Salma Hayek cried before shooting nude scenes with Antonio Banderas. Although most leading ladies would have jumped at the chance to dive into bed with the Hollywood hunk for 1992 movie Desperado, Salma was worried about what her parents would think when they saw her on screen.

"It was my first chance at an American film and I knew I had to take it. In Desperado, I had great difficulty doing the love scene with Antonio Banderas. I actually cried. I didn't want to be naked in front of a camera and kept on thinking, 'What will my mother and father think about this?'"

The movie was a cult hit and helped launch Salma's career, but as her English still wasn't great at the time, she initially thought the film had flopped and critics were blaming her for it. "When the movie came out the critics were saying, 'Salma Hayek is a bombshell.' I was confused because I thought they were saying that the movie had 'bombed,' as in failed, and it was all my fault," she added.

Salma - who is married to Francois-Henri Pinault, with whom she has daughter Valentina Paloma Pinault - also said she didn't think she was beautiful when she first tried to make it in the US:

"I thought I was pretty - not beautiful, but pretty. And I also knew that there were prettier women in every town. I was also told, at one point, that my accent would remind people in Hollywood of their Mexican housekeepers. I always knew that I would make it. When you say 'make it,' in English, it means becoming a star. To me, it means not to have great success, but to simply be able to do what you want in life. That is enough."