Los Angeles, Feb 17 (IANS): Hollywood diva Salma Hayek recalls how her Desperado co-star Antonio Banderas helped her when she started tearing up on the sets of the 1995 film, and says he is an absolute gentleman.

"So, when we were going to start shooting, I started to sob (and said) 'I don't know that I can do it. I'm afraid'," she recalled.

"One of the things I was afraid of was Antonio - he was an absolute gentleman and so nice, and we're still super close friends - but he was very free. It scared me that for him, it was like nothing. I started crying, and he was like, 'Oh my God. You're making me feel terrible'. And I was so embarrassed that I was crying," she said, according to a femalefirst.co.uk report.

She also said that the film's director Robert Rodriguez had never put pressure on her to do something she was uncomfortable with. Salma said that she found it difficult to get through the scenes without crying.

"I was not letting go of the towel. They would try to make me laugh. I would take it off for two seconds and start crying again. But we got through it. We did the best with what we could do at the time," Salma told Dax Shepard and Monica Padman during the Armchair Expert podcast.