20 June,2012 10:10 AM IST | | A Correspondent
The âFrida' actress was a talented gymnast and was chosen in the Mexican Olympics contingent but her father Sami refused to let her compete.
"They drafted me... to be part of the Olympic team! But I was eight or nine and my father said no because I would have had to go live in Mexico City in a boarding school for gymnasts, do six hours, eight hours a day training, which for me was like paradise," Salma (45) said recently.
Salma Hayek
Salma was spotted by talent scouts in Mexico City in the 1970s but was thwarted on the grounds that she should have a "normal childhood."
Though she was disappointed then, the actress has no grudge against her father. "My father thought I wouldn't have had a normal childhood, and he wanted me to be normal. It's too bad that with all his efforts it didn't work out! But anyway, it worked out for me because now I'm an actress!" Salma said. - Agenciesu00a0
