One of the most vivid memories I have from my childhood home in Bangladesh involve Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. The book was always present in my parents’ various bookshelves, and although I never fully grasped the depth of the work until I was older, the faded, sepia shades of the book’s cover was always somewhere in my childhood’s background, peering back at me.
So you can imagine how excited I was when my HuffPost Live producers asked me to record a question for Salma Hayek, the Hollywood superstar who just produced an animated version of the legendary Lebanese poet’s work.
Although Hayek famously talks about her Mexican roots, I loved how she shared her Middle Eastern family throughout the promotion for this film. The animated feature even had its premier in Beirut.
As always, it was refreshing to hear Hayek speak with candor about Hollywood’s issues with racism and sexism. I asked her what message she hoped the film would inspire in the children of the Middle East.
Watch Hayek and my brief moment in history together here.
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/55b2c87502a760275e000600