Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz are the embodiment of "friends till the end" in the Hollywood machine, always supportive of each other's endeavors and willing to uplift each other in any situation.
Salma, 57, and Penélope, 50, have experienced many situations together over their two decades of friendship in the industry, and are reliving one of their most horrifying.
"You and I were in a hairy situation on a plane once… What did you learn from the emergency landing we experienced?" the Parallel Mothers actress asked her friend, and Salma recalled the touching moments they shared.
"You've always had a fear of flying and you always give me instructions of what to do if you die in a crash!" she recalled. "That day we were together on a flight and the plane had an emergency and had to land in the middle of nowhere in Mexico."
"I knew it was going to happen because I saw the flight attendant coming out of the cockpit and grabbing oxygen," Salma remembered, then sharing how she tried to calm Penélope down.
"So, I took your hands and said to you that we're going to be OK. There is something wrong with the plane, but I need you to calm down. And I was so proud of you because I could see you struggling to calm yourself down. We could do a whole movie about this!"
The beautiful words that followed after even left an impact on the Frida star, as she added: "And then you said something so beautiful that I will never forget. You said, 'I thought maybe we were going to die. But we were going to die together. And we were going to be OK.'"
The pair first met when Penélope moved to Hollywood to kickstart her English-language career and Salma, who had mutual friends, immediately extended her hand in friendship by picking her up at the airport and hosting her at her home.
"And it's been more than 20 years of a solid friendship. We clicked instantaneously. It felt like we had known each other for a lifetime," she fondly added.
Penélope, who celebrated her 50th birthday this weekend in NYC with husband Javier Bardem, Ricky Martin, and Salma herself, spoke about the incident in an interview with People in 2017.
"I had an emergency landing on Halloween day with my friend Salma and because it was Halloween we were dressed as clowns," she quipped. "And I never liked clowns but after that experience, if you can even less. I cannot stand seeing a clown after that."
She remembered several others being on the flight with them in costume, adding: "We were 100 people on that flight and thank God I'm here to tell you the story but it was crazy because we were all wearing costumes."
"It was really crazy, when I tell this story people think I'm making it up."
