By Rob Lowman
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES — While doing interviews beside Malibou Lake for “Grown Ups” at a private club in suburban Agoura Hills, Salma Hayek showed some moves audiences won’t see in the film.
Sitting between the film’s other two female leads — Maria Bello and Maya Rudolph — the actress was answering questions when the trio spotted a snake crawling toward their chairs. In a flash, Hayek was balancing her high heels on the arm of Rudolph’s chair and grabbing onto the comedian, shrieking “Somebody do something!
Eventually, Hayek was helped down by an assistant and led away.
“It was like a python. It was thick. Its head was like this, like a cobra!” recalled Bello, who also climbed up on a chair, but seemed more bemused than frightened by the incident.
Earlier in the day, a calmer Hayek had explained why she’s now calling herself Salma Hayek Pinault. Although she married fashion mogul Francois-Henri Pinault last year, it wasn’t until their 2-year-old daughter, Valentina, asked about the name that she decided on a change.
“I didn’t think about it until she brought it up,” says the actress.
“We were shooting a film, and she saw my chair with my name on it. She said, ‘What does it say there?’ And I said, ‘Salma Hayek.’ And she said, ‘What about Pinault? Why not Pinault?’ I said to myself, ‘This is who I am now.’ I’m starting a whole new life. I’ve never been happier.”