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Daily Inspiration Quote by Salma Hayek

"I directed a movie and now, I'm going to do the editing"

About this Quote

There is a quiet flex in Hayek's casual sequencing: I did the biggest, most mythologized job on set, and now I am taking the job that actually decides what the movie is. Directing gets the aura. Editing gets the authorship. By stating it like a plain next step, she demystifies the hierarchy that still haunts film production, where women are often welcomed as faces but treated as guests in the control room.

The intent is practical - she is claiming responsibility for the whole pipeline - but the subtext is political. In an industry that loves to praise women for being "hands-on" while keeping the keys with established editors, producers, and financiers, "I'm going to do the editing" reads like a refusal to hand her vision back to the system for translation. Editing is where performance is reinterpreted, where pacing becomes persuasion, where a character can be softened into palatability or sharpened into threat. For an actress, especially one who has spent a career navigating how the camera frames her body and credibility, taking the edit is a way of taking the gaze.

Context matters: Hayek is a veteran who has seen how credit and creative control are distributed, and she has produced enough to know that power often hides in post-production. The line lands because it treats that power as non-negotiable, not aspirational. It's not "let me try". It's "I'm doing it."

Quote Details

TopicMovie
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Hayek, Salma. (2026, January 16). I directed a movie and now, I'm going to do the editing. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-directed-a-movie-and-now-im-going-to-do-the-95022/

Chicago Style
Hayek, Salma. "I directed a movie and now, I'm going to do the editing." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-directed-a-movie-and-now-im-going-to-do-the-95022/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I directed a movie and now, I'm going to do the editing." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-directed-a-movie-and-now-im-going-to-do-the-95022/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Salma Hayek on Directing and Editing
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About the Author

Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek (born September 2, 1966) is a Actress from Mexico.

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