Selena Gomez to Star in Upcoming Linda Ronstadt Biopic

Selena Gomez has been up to a lot of amazing projects across music and film this past year. She’s the star and executive producer of her own cooking show Selena + Chef and has been developing projects like a Latinx series based on Sixteen Candles, a Hulu reboot of Working Girl, and a biopic about Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, the first openly gay woman to climb the Seven Summits. This week, her name has been attached to another exciting film. Variety announced that she will next star as Linda Ronstadt in an upcoming biopic about the award-winning singer of Mexican descent. Gomez reportedly confirmed the announcement by posting a picture of Rondstadt’s memoir Simple Dreams on her Instagram story.

Besides the fact that Gomez resembles the icon, they both share Mexican heritage. In a 2015 interview on On Air With Ryan Seacrest about her album Revival, Gomez said, “I always used to get told that I look like her. And I started listening to her music because of that.”

Born in Tuscon, Arizona, Rondstadt first rose to fame in the 1960s during the folk and country rock music movements in California. She has since become a music legend in the genres of country, rock n’ roll, and Latin music, releasing successful albums like Heart Like a Wheel and Mexican folk project Canciones de Mi Padre, which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Throughout her career, she’s won 11 Grammys, earned Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Recording Academy and Latin Recording Academy, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her family is of Mexican descent and has had a huge impact on local Arizona history and culture. Due to health issues, Rondstadt retired in 2011 but her impact continues to be felt today in the industry. She’s published two memoirs, Simple Dreams and Feels Like Home, and was the subject of the 2019 documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice.

Gomez first broke out onto the scene on Disney Channel with her show Wizards of Waverly Place. She has since released six chart-topping albums and currently stars and executives produces Only Murders in the Building on Hulu, which has garnered numerous Emmy and Golden Globe nominations including for Gomez as Mabel Mora. Her last English-language album, Rare (2020), included her first No.1 single “Lose You to Love Me” and the following year she released her first Spanish-language album, Revelación. The album had the the biggest sales week for a Latin music album by a woman since Shakira’s El Dorado (2017).

In addition to Gomez, other names attached to the biopic project, which is now in pre-production, include Ronstadt’s manager John Boylan and producer James Keach. It’s confirmed to be a dramatization of Rondstadt’s story as one of the biggest faces in music in the ’70s and ’80s, recording her platinum albums, and how she navigated a male-dominated music industry. No other casting or plot details have been announced yet and no release date has been announced. We can’t wait to see her story on the big screen and how they spotlight her heritage through her music.