Salma Hayek reimagines 'Like Water for Chocolate' in new 'complex,' 'sensual' HBO series
Salma Hayek Pinault's new series adaptation of the best-selling 1989 novel "Like Water for Chocolate" comes with a cheeky disclaimer from the actor and producer: "It makes you want to eat and it makes you want to make love."
Based on the magical realism "literary jewel" by Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel (also adapted into a 1992 film), "Like Water for Chocolate" (Sundays, 8 EST/PST on HBO Latino and streaming on Max) is getting the Hayek Pinault treatment with a fresh and sensual reimagining spanning six episodes as viewers go on a journey of forbidden love with Tita (Azul Guaita) and Pedro (Andrés Baida).
Set in 1900s Mexico, the Spanish-language series begins with Tita, the youngest De La Garza daughter, born in a flood of tears after her Mamá Elena's (Irene Azuela) water breaks in the middle of the kitchen of Las Palomas Ranch as she's chopping onions and grieving the death of their patriarch.
Tita's emotional birth is symbolic of the grief, in family and love, that she'll experience throughout her life.
The series then fast forwards through the heightened love and lust between Pedro and Tita, and the plans she dreams up of a life with him before Mamá Elena reveals to her that as the youngest daughter, she must stay by her side until the day she dies.
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"It's about women trying to take their destinies by their hands and empower themselves," Hayek Pinault says. "It's about a complex relationship with tradition and the fear of disappointing our parents. It's funny, sensual, and beautiful and a great love story of forbidden love – for the most ridiculous reasons – but the weight it has at that time and place is intense."
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Why 'Like Water for Chocolate' film adaptation was 'special' for Salma Hayek
The 1992 adaptation was the highest-grossing foreign-language film ever released in the U.S. at the time, earning 10 Ariel Awards and a Golden Globe nomination.
The film found the "From Dusk Till Dawn" actress at a formative time in her life. "As I moved to the States in hopes of having an international career, this Mexican film does a crossover," Hayek Pinault says. "It was something special and it gave me so much courage to think that maybe I could do that, too."
As the 1992 film broke language barriers and brought a Spanish-language film to English-speaking audiences, Hayek Pinault hopes her remake also brings Esquivel's classic novel to "audiences around the globe to discover this masterpiece of literature. It's so rich, there's so much you can get out of it."
"Everybody who was involved with this show, in front and behind the camera, you felt that it was a labor of love. We were all excited to do this book and it was special to all of us in some way."
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Salma Hayek's 'Like Water for Chocolate' was six years in the making
After 1995's "Desperado" launched Hayek Pinault into stardom, she launched her production company, Ventanarosa, in 1999. The company also produced "Frida," which made Hayek Pinault the first Mexican actress ever to be nominated for best actress in a leading role, and gave America Ferrera her breakthrough role in ABC's "Ugly Betty."
And still, it took six years for her to find a home for "Chocolate".
"I think they don't want to listen to me," she says jokingly of fellow Hollywood execs. "I succeed and I succeed and they see that, but a lot of women are going to identify with what I'm saying. You struggle, you get to a place, you prove yourself and you think, 'OK, now it's going to get easier. Nah.' They think it must have been a fluke, 'Can you do it again?' And I say, 'Yeah, I can. Watch me go.'"
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Despite her unwavering conviction to bring Latino stories to the screen, "I do get exasperated when it has to be so hard. We know what our people want and we have to deal with people who don't understand our culture and don't know that this is what they want," Hayek Pinault says. "People want to feel a sense of pride in their culture and their roots. They think that the only thing that will succeed is if it's cliché, stereotypical and kind of silly − but there are different types of Latinos, and we have to serve all of them."
Food and love is the heart of 'Like Water for Chocolate'
The magic of "Like Water for Chocolate" comes into play when Tita gets down in the kitchen. Spending most of her time there, helping Nacha (Ángeles Cruz), the cook who essentially raised her, Tita learns to express herself through food, literally and figuratively.
"Tita is kind of a superhero in the kitchen," Hayek Pinault says. "She has this superpower that whatever emotion she (has she) puts into the food she cooks and whoever eats it is contaminated by her emotions."
After Mamá Elena forbids Tita from seeing Pedro and instead offers Tita's older sister Rosaura to marry him (he agrees, but only to be closer to his true love), Tita is tasked with baking their wedding cake. Her heartbreak and despair are infused into the recipe, and when wedding guests take a bite, rain clouds above them start pouring down and they all become visibly overwhelmed by sadness.
But it's also how Tita expresses her love – and lust – for the one she can't have.
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Despite the period setting of "Like Water for Chocolate," Hayek Pinault believes it is a timeless, universal story.
"I'm proud of it and I just want everyone to watch it," she says. "I hope that the show inspires (viewers) to do everything with presence and joy, and to not forget to celebrate some of those wonderful lessons in life we take for granted, or to take things like food, family, the people that support us, for granted."
