Is the World Finally Ready to See Selena Gomez as an Actor?
Selena Gomez is as big a star as can be: a world-famous, multitalented industry unto herself. Shes a couple years shy of thirty, yet her accomplishments have already put scores of showbiz lifers to shame: Millions in record sales. Two world tours of sold-out stadiums. More than a hundred film and TV credits, dating back to when she was just some sweet-faced kid from Grand Prairie, palling around with Barney & Friends. Gomez has excelled at everything shes ever set her mind to; she even managed to turn an experiment with quarantine home cooking into a three-seasons-and-counting hit series for HBO Max. This sounds like a ridiculous question for someone whos as established and beloved as Selena Gomezand on that last note, I swear to her loyal, occasionally terrifying fan base that I ask it in good faith. Because the fact remains that Gomez, despite being on-screen since she was ten, has yet to fully make that transition from a pop star whos sometimes in movies or TV (see also: Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson) to an actor whose music career feels separate, almost incidental. But by all appearances, this is about to change. Earlier this week, Hulu released the first trailer for the upcoming dramedy series Only Murders in the Building, premiering August 31, that stars the unlikely comedy team of Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. The three play a trio of neighbors who become obsessed with solving a homicide inside their tony Manhattan apartment building, using the skills theyve gleaned from true-crime podcasts to ferret out the killer. Steve Martin and Martin Short are, of course, a classic pairing, with an easy give-and-take honed over decades, including in movies like Three Amigos and Father of the Bride. Gomez is the real unknown quantity here, forced to hold her own against the comedy equivalent of tenured professors. The trailers just over a minute long, but it already tells you plenty about whether Gomez can pull it off. While Martin and Short dominate the clip with talky voiceovers, its Gomez to whom youre instinctively drawn. Shes an enigma wrapped in a posh turtleneck. We get only a few flashes of her characters inner worldGomez bolting upright from a bad dream; Gomez wrestling someone to the ground as her face twists into vengeful angerbut already you can sense that theres a lot of torment and rage bubbling beneath her cool, glamorous surface. Gomez even gets a solid emotional beat, as she confesses of the unfolding murder mystery: I cant tell if I want it to be nothing or for it to be something. And yes, she can also do comedy. She gets the trailers parting punch line, giving Steve Martin some light guff over his self-avowed charm.  Perhaps none of this should be considered remarkable for someone as skilled or experienced as Gomez. But its bound to be hailed as a revelation anyway. The same goes for her upcoming starring turns in the psychological thrillers Dollhouse and Spiral, and a biopic about the pioneering mountaineer Silvia Vasquez-Lavado. After nearly twenty years on screen, Selena Gomez is suddenly diving into acting with a commitment thats truly unprecedented in her career. Its something her past work hasnt exactly prepared us for. After all, were more used to hearing Gomez on screen, rather than seeing her. The biggest titles in Gomezs filmography have been primarily voiceover roleslike Draculas daydreaming daughter in the blockbuster animated franchise Hotel Transylvania, where she provides the emotional through line to a series of monster-related goofs. Or 2020s Dolittle, where Gomez plays the gregarious giraffe Betsy (although youd be forgiven for missing her among the films celebrity-studded, CGI menagerie). Given how few big, non-cartoon roles shes been given, its little wonder that Gomez is, to her chagrin, still often characterized as a Disney star, frozen in neon-tinted amber as the spirited teen sorceress she portrayed for four seasons on Wizards of Waverly Place. For a while, Gomezs career certainly seemed destined to follow the Disney Channel star trajectoryand not just into the pop-music stardom thats been de rigueur for many, such as Ariana Grande and Gomezs Texan compatriots, Hilary Duff and Demi Lovato. The kind of perpetually cherubic, positive role model that pleases the Disney machine carried over into most of Gomezs early film work, beginning with 2011s fluffy Cinderella fantasy Monte Carlo. Even Gomezs first attempt at reinvention, Harmony Korines Spring Breakers, relied heavily on her Disney image in order to subvert it. Gomezs sweet, devoutly Christian character Faith provides the 2013 films moral center, the girlish innocence thats symbolically rejected by her friends amid their bikini-girls-with-machine-guns bacchanalia. Spring Breakers marked the beginning of a period of risky experimentation for Gomez, as she tried to shed her child-star past. The trouble is, not many people actually saw her. Gomez played a gun-toting teenage hacker in 2013s Getaway opposite Austins own Ethan Hawke, but the film ended up being one of the years biggest box-office bombs. In 2014, Gomez joined her fellow Disney Channel grad Nat Wolff in the raunchy-ish teen sex comedy Behaving Badly, only to see it go straight to video. The reviews were even worse than the indifference: Getaway in particular earned the ire of critics like the Atlantics Christopher Orr, who singled out Gomezs performance as a kid trying desperately to act like a grownup, but with no real idea what that might entail.  In fact, Gomezs most successful movie roles in the last decade were mostly cameos as herself, as in The Muppets and The Big Short, or some satirical shade of her squeaky-clean persona, like the fussy, flower-crowned sorority president in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. This isnt really a surprise: acting is hard enough without having one of the most famous faces on the planet, or the added baggage of everyone thinking they know you through your tabloid fame or your (largely autobiographical) music. Its why most pop stars dont make the transition into capital-A actors, even if thats where their careers actually began. But to Gomezs credit, shes redoubled her commitment to changing peoples minds about all that. Shes taken some real chances in the last few years, cultivating her hipster cred with a gory turn in Jim Jarmuschs zombie satire The Dead Dont Die, and reinforcing her arthouse bona fides by starring in Woody Allens A Rainy Day In New York. Unfortunately, that film was quickly consumed by Allens scandal-plagued personal life. Still, both roles found Gomez setting aside Selena Gomez and sublimating herself in someone elses workreally acting, in other words. Its something shes now pursuing with the same zeal and focus shes brought to the rest of her enormously successful brand. I havent even touched the surface of what I want to do, Gomez told Vogue back in April. I cant wait for the moment when a director can see that Im capable of doing something that no ones ever seen.  It definitely seems like that moment is here. And this time, the world may finally be ready for it.