In another instance of what could be called “Hollywood Mad-Libs,” Salma Hayek salsa-danced with Channing Tatum to Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday.” Channing turned 42 on Tuesday (Apr. 26), and Salma, 55, took a moment to celebrate by dancing with her Magic Mike’s Last Dance co-star. Against Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday,” Channing did his best to follow Salma’s instructions. “Do it again,” she tells him in the video she posted to her Instagram. Channing obeys, and the two cut a fierce rug before their dance devolves into laughter and love.
“Happy Birthday Channing!!!! You’re such a Joy to be around,” Salma captioned the video, along with a string of emojis that included a balloon, the red-dress dancing lady, and a pair of prayer hands. Feliz cumpleaños @channingtatum.”
“Can’t wait to see this movie already,” wrote producer Heather Parry, referring to Magic Mike’s Last Dance. Salma stepped in to replace Thandiwe Newton in April after the Thandie “ made the difficult decision to step away from the production of Warner Bros. Pictures’ Magic Mike’s Last Dance to deal with family matters,” a spokesperson for the studio told Variety.
Thandie, 49, showed there was no bad blood between her and Salma on Monday (Apr. 25) by praising her part in 2017’s Beatriz at Dinner. “For me, no finer performance, no finer film, about the real questions we need to be asking,” Thandie wrote on her Instagram Story, per People, while sharing the Beatriz at Dinner poster. “I love you,” she added in a message to Salma.
Channing and Reid Carolin, the writer of the first two Magic Mike movies, told Variety in February that the lead female role is crucial to the plot of this sequel. “It’s really about a woman stuck at a horrible strip show like a Chippendales and then realizing, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’” said Carolin. “And then Magic Mike comes down from the ceiling. She gets to go down the rabbit hole and asks: ‘What do I really want?'”
Tatum added that the character is “really strong, almost stronger than Mike … we’ve never done a traditional love story, and this isn’t a traditional love story.”