Salma Hayek

There’s a new vampire movie in town, but it happens in a much colorful world than Edward and Bella’s Forks, Washington hometown.

It’s so colorful, in fact, that it’s filled with all sorts of freaks from a Snake Boy to a Wolfman and everything in between. And if it can get any freakier than that, even ultra hot Mexican actress Salma Hayek’s face literally sprouts out a beard!

Playing the bearded psychic lady, Madame Truska, the Academy Award-nominated actress is just one of the odd characters in the upcoming movie “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.”

Following the dark, if a little comic, tale of 16-year-old Darren Shan (played by Chris Massoglia), “Cirque du Freak” is a fantasy adventure about a teenager who unwittingly breaks a centuries-old truce between two warring vampire factions.

Darren, who stumbles upon a traveling freak show and a vampire that eventually turns him into a blood sucking undead, meets all the crazy creatures in a story that its director, Paul Weitz (“American Pie,” “About A Boy”) describes as “a metaphor for growing up.”

According to Weitz, the casting of Salma Hayek as Madame Truska—the frustrated girlfriend of Darren’s vampire mentor Lartern Crepsley (played by John C. Reily)—stemmed from his stringent requirement. “I wanted someone who is conventionally voluptuous to be able to sprout a beard at will,” he claimed. “Salma fit the bill, and she’s really fun.”

Salma really doesn’t instantly grow a beard in real life, but the sexy actress agreed to play the role because Madame Truska “is strong and knows what she wants, but at the same time she can be very sweet and vulnerable.”

To the actress, the real heart of these characters is not their peculiarities but their humanity. “She is madly in love with a vampire. You definitely recognize in her a lot of the longings every woman has. She just wants this man to love her for who she is and to settle down. To see these very strange women deal with such common problems was fascinating to me.”

As for her newfound ability to grow facial hair at will, at least on the screen, Salma got into it with as much humor as she could muster. “There was a lot of work and hours in the trailer, but I was excited to see myself with a beard. It’s fun to be able to change and become someone else.”

“Cirque du Freak,” the movie, is based on a book series with the same title by U.K. author Darren Shan. Known for its dark humor and wicked thrills, the series that even “Harry Potter” author, J.K. Rowling, has commended as a “compelling book... [with] a plot full of twists which leaves the reader hungry for more” has, to date, been published in 37 countries in 30 different languages.