Salma Hayek opens up about motherhood and how she and her daughter are similar

As a mom-of-one and stepmother-of-three, Salma Hayek has fully embraced motherhood. The How to Be a Latin Lover actress stars on the cover of HOLA! USA’s May issue alongside her own mother Diana Jiménez, where she opened up about raising her and husband François-Henri Pinault’s nine-year-old daughter Valentina, in addition to her stepchildren, Augustin, Mathilde and François.

“Every woman has a maternal instinct inside and I think that it’s important that all humans try to have that experience and apply that maternal instinct to some living creature,” Salma said. “You don’t have to have children, but be responsible and take care of animals or a plant. Take care of another being.” The 50-year-old continued, “Feeling responsible helps you develop as a human being. It doesn’t have to be a sacrifice but an intention that you give of yourself, and contribute to another living being’s life. That’s very rewarding. You learn a lot about yourself when you do something for someone else.”

Salma married her French businessman husband in 2009 after welcoming daughter Valentina in 2007. When it comes to her little girl, the Bandidas star, who was born in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, admitted that she does not apply all of the lessons she learned from her mother Diana to her little girl because Valentina is “growing up in different circumstances.” “I don’t say the sort of things to Valentina that my mom said to me because her life is different,” the actress explained. “What my mom taught me was very important to me, but I don’t pass that on to my daughter because she needs the opposite."

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Though the mom-of-one wants her daughter to be "the opposite," Salma noted that she and her daughter do share a few similarities. She revealed, “Valentina and I are not very similar personality-wise. But she doesn’t have stage fright on camera. In my family everyone is very confident, graceful and light. Valentina and I are the ones who panic on stage. But she gets in front of the camera with no problem!”

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Over the course of her nearly three-decade career, Salma has gone on to star in a number of shows and films and earned an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination for her role as Frida Kahlo in the 2002 film Frida. Discussing her daughter’s success, Diana said, “I always knew that Salmita would be something big in her life because of her personality, her way of always working for what she wants, but she surprises me — because Salma is unstoppable.”

For more from this candid sitdown pick up the May issue of HOLA! USA in English