Meryl Streep is Carey Mulligan's new-mom bouncer
What happens when you put Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Amy Schumer and Salma Hayek in the same room? We found out at the annual L’Oréal Paris-sponsored Elle Women in Hollywood dinner on Monday night. Here's what we learned.
1. Meryl Streep is basically Carey Mulligan’s new-mom bodyguard
Carey was introduced by her beloved Suffragette co-star, who saluted Carey's “5-week-old, Evie Grace." Said Carey:
"The last couple of weeks have been pretty stressful, doing press and doing it with a tiny baby. And timing has been very important. Babies do what they want, which is a challenge. But it’s really helpful when you have Meryl Streep backstage at events shouting at people on your behalf, telling them, ‘Hurry the hell up, we’ve got a nursing mother here!’”
2. Kate Winslet’s daughter is an awesome teenager
The 'Steve Jobs' star said her personal woman of the year is her "15-year-old daughter Mia, who looks herself in the mirror every day and tells me she's happy being her."
3. Lena Dunham revealed why Amy Schumer is a fab BFF
“She’s the kind of ride-or-die friend you spend the whole life hoping for. The one who calls you back in the middle of the night when you think you’re going to die of shame, and who will walk very slowly for nine miles with you and call it exercise.”
4. Amy Schumer almost punched Judd Apatow
“If you told me 10 years ago that I would be on the cover of Elle magazine, I would have been like, yeah, I could see that. I’m pretty cute, I get it," the Trainwreck and HBO star deadpanned. “The truth is I make a lot of jokes about myself, and I have the same moments where I lose all self esteem and cannot believe anyone has managed to get an erection at my expense," she said, to laughter.
When Judd Apatow granted me the privilege to be in a movie he would make and direct I was like, yeah, he sees me like Seth Rogen…and he said to me, 'I think you’re prettier than you understand.' I just wanted to punch him in the face and ruin my (big movie) opportunity. Cause I was like, you’re crazy. Why is Universal doing this? Why are they playing this big trick on me? When is Hollywood going to realize I’m disgusting and that I have no right to be in a movie?
Her fears, of course, were proven wrong – and Trainwreck went on to gross $110 million. Schumer also shared her best advice from Gloria Steinem: "Just don't burn out."
5. How Salma Hayek escaped playing 'bimbos'
Salma Hayek gave a visceral career recap from the podium. “When I came here in 1991, I was a soap star and I came here with the dream of becoming a really good actress like Meryl Streep," she said.
"I was told, ‘Nah, go back to Mexico…there are no leading parts for Mexicans in this town, especially Mexican women," she said. "And they were right. They were not mean. It was just the reality I was stepping into."
Salma stayed in Hollywood and "pushed and pushed like the shorty angry Mexican woman I am.” Tired of playing “bimbos,” Salma started pitching playing Frida Kahlo – but no one wanted the biopic. Salma detailed the eight years she spent gaining and losing funding, asking her friends to co-star in Frida almost no money, how hard it was to get rights to Kahlo’s paintings, and then how the studio tried to recast her.
“They told me I was a nobody,” she said.
Frida finally arrived in 2002, and so did the Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. At the Globes, Salma lost out to Nicole Kidman. No surprise, she said: "Blonde, blue eyes, speaking English with no accent, she won for her brilliant 20-minute appearance in The Hours." After Frida's Oscar run, "I thought I was going to get these kinds of roles that I dreamed of. But nothing changed. I still only got the bimbos. I was so devastated creatively," she said. Ultimately Salma launched production companies and began producing shows like Ugly Betty.
“Maybe things didn’t change back then," she concluded. "But I did. And when you change, the world around you starts to shift.”