While Salma Hayek has long garnered a reputation as one of Hollywood’s most glamorous modern leading ladies, from the very beginning, she has never been afraid to push the more archaic or traditional conventions of femininity for her art.

Some of Hayek’s less conventional roles has consisted of playing vampire stripper Santanico Pandemonium in Robert Rodriguez’s cult classic From Dusk Till Dawn and rich girl-turned-bandit Sara Sandoval in Bandidas and as the Bang Bang Shoot Shoot nurses in Across The Universe. Now the 43 year-old actress and producer tackles what is inarguably her most left field role to date, as Cirque du Freak’s bearded lady Madame Truska in the film Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, based on the book in the series by author Darren Shan.

However, despite what one would think, despite having done two vampire-related films previously, Salma says she has no particular love for the subject in general.

“I don't have a fascination for vampires,” she says, “It's quite ironic. I've actually been a vampire in a movie, and I've been in love with a vampire in another movie, and yet I have no fascination whatsoever with vampires. But, I did love this script. It wasn't the fact that it was vampires. I actually found the concept of the circus freaks a lot more interesting than the vampires, maybe because there's been less movies done about that. It doesn't matter what I like because they were interesting characters.”

“What I also liked that it was a film that is for young people, but it doesn't treat young people as a cliché. It's respectful of their uniqueness,” Hayek adds, “It doesn't tell them exactly what they're supposed to think. It gives them space to take different things in different ways. I thought it was quite smart and refreshing, so that's what attracted me to this project. It just happened to be a vampire project. It also just happened to have facial hair, and it's the third time I've done some kind of freaky facial hair in a movie.”

She even shared some tips for how one properly grows and maintains a beard.

“I think it's very important to steam, so that you get the root of the hair,” Salma says, “It's important not to drink a lot, the night before, so that your hands don't shake and you don't cut yourself. And, you know what, at some point, it's important to experience and just let it be and let it grow and accept yourself with all the hair you have.”

Salma says that her wearing the beard had no negative effect on her infant daughter when she witnessed the actress wearing it on set.

“She’s seen me with the beard,” Hayek reveals, “She understands it's makeup. She’s seven months old and she’s not freaking out. I explained to her the process, she was seven months, she saw it going in and she was fascinated, looking at it. She knew not to touch it because it was fake. She’s with me the whole time. I had to show it to her, otherwise I wouldn't have seen her the whole day. It’s not like I could put it on and off.”

We wondered if Hayek felt she was used to wearing a beard after having played her Oscar-nominated role of wispy-mustached artist Frida Kahlo in Frida.

“I'm not actually totally used to seeing myself with a beard,” she says, “John [C. Reilly] made me feel really good about it, yeah, but it was probably just a trick. He would say, ‘Oh, my God, you look so hot with a beard,’ [you go]‘Really?’ and you’re such a fool.”

“It was like when people tell you, you are like a whale and swollen from the pregnancy,” Salma continues, “You’ve never looked worse in your life, and people say, ‘Oh! You glow!’ It’s like they have no words to tell you how bad you look and they say you glow, and you feel like you glow and it’s the same with the beard how they made me feel. They made me feel good about it.”

However, an article more appealing to Salma in playing Madame Truska than the beard was the red dress Madame Truska sports in The Vampire’s Assistant.

“There were some amazing costumes in it,” Hayek notes, “Judianna [Makovsky] did a fantastic job. It was a really challenging movie for them. What I liked the most was that she really worked with you and we were all very picky about the character. You know, I don’t think it was just, ‘Oh, I want to look cool.’”

“We were all like very intense,” she adds, as she begins to chuckle, “I know John was. You have to be about really creating a character. So rarely you get a character where you can create something big and theatrical, that has a look, has a world of its own. It was really exciting to wear them.”

We wondered if Hayek had the power to see the future like he character does in the film.

“Do you know a woman that doesn't have them a little bit? But, I don't have them any more than the average,” Salma answers.

Pushing it further, we asked if it worked for her.

“I'm not going to tell you that,” Hayek replies, “Do you really think, if I had some kind of mental powers, I'd be talking about them in an interview?”

Despite the all the makeup and costume work, Hayek said she deeply enjoyed working on The Vampire’s Assistant.

“For me, it was a dream job because I had a very small part and everybody in the movie is amazing and fun to be with,” Salma enthuses, “Yeah, for me, it was just a lot of fun. I come in and talk with nice people and have a fun, crazy character. It was not a lot of work. I got to spend a lot of time with my child. But, at the same time, everybody took this very seriously. It has a lot of comedy, the movie, and they are very fantastic characters, but part of the fun was working with such professional people.”

Hayek claims she even also had no issues with the major height differences between her and co-star John C. Reilly in filming scenes.

“I was in high heels, yeah,” Salma notes, “I don’t remember having problems, no. He's very flexible.”

Salma particularly had praise for co-star Chris Massoglia, who makes his Hollywood film debut as teen-boy-turned-vampire Darren Shan.

“I got to say I was very impressed with Chris [Massoglia],” Hayek remarks, “He's young, it's his first movie. It would be very easy to get distracted. But, all the young kids were shocking. They were like machines, professional, focused, take it very serious, really paid attention to the directions, really tried to understand, and really tried to learn. I saw him always watching John and paying attention. Everybody took it very seriously, and that was part of the fun.”

In keeping with the notion of Hayek playing a member of Cirque Du Freak, we asked Hayek if she herself ever wanted to join the circus.

“I did dream a little bit about the contortionist or a trapeze, all those gymnastic-like things,” Salma says, “I would have loved to have done that. And so, really, I think it was only in Coatzacoalcos (The town where she was born in the state of Veracruz in Mexico) that they came, but they pretended that they were all over the world, but I’ve never known anybody that knows them.”

“This is not the circus, but have you ever heard of Up with People?” she continues, “I had a dream about going away with Up With People and just going from town to town and doing this show for world peace. That was my kind of circus that I wanted to.”

We also wondered if she considers her status as celebrity often targeted by the tabloids part of a real life “Cirque du Freak”?

“I don't think that we are the freaks,” Hayek believes, “I think what's freaky is the guy behind the camera desperate and so excited because they’re seeing you walk into a supermarket. I think that's freaky. They're the freaks. I'm not the freak. I've been attacked by the freaks sometimes. That's the strange part.”

Hayek says she enjoyed so much working with both John C. Reilly and Chris Massoglia that she says she has plans for them to work on a project from her production company, Vantanarosa, who are behind the successful ABC comedy/drama Ugly Betty.

“We have some plans,” she says, “We are developing some movies and some television shows in the company. I was actually just talking with John about a project where he might be playing a Mexican soap star and Diego Luna will be his manager.”

“We've been talking about this project since we were shooting this film,” Salma adds, “And, I think I'm going to have to write a part for Chris because I am convinced, and you know I can see the future, that he's going to be a huge, huge star and he's very, very talented, and I think I can get him for very cheap right now.”

We wondered, with her second successful stripe as a producer, if directing was next in the cards for Salma.

“I do want to direct,” Hayek admits, “But not for a while, because I have a baby now.”

We wondered if she on board for a sequel should a Cirque du Freak franchise take off.

“We did sign a contract,” Salma replies, “We don't know if it's going to happen or not, but they made sure that just we cannot like escape that easily, if it does well. I think it's going to do really well, and I think it's going to surprise many people.”