22 March 2022

Jennifer Lopez will “never forget” starring in breakthrough movie ‘Selena’.

Jennifer Lopez discusses her breakout role as tragic singer Selena on the 25th anniversary of the acclaimed biopic

The 52-year-old star took on the leading role of late singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez – who was fatally shot at the age of 23 in 1995 – in her 1997 biopic, and this week she took to Instagram to pay tribute to the film on its 25th anniversary.

Alongside a slideshow of throwbacks clip of herself promoting the film she wrote: “What a very special day … we’re celebrating 25 years of SELENA! Today we celebrate and honor Selena’s legacy and music. What a very special day.”

The ‘Jenny From the Block’ hitmaker starred opposite Edward James Olmos and Constance Marie – who played Selena’s parents in the film – and went on to explain her love for the tragic star’s real life family and said that the film was an “honor” to be a part of.

She wrote: “Selena and her family mean so much to me, and I was so lucky to be chosen to play her. I’ll never forget this time in my life and it’s an honor as an artist to have been part of the magic that is this movie. (sic)”

In the old clip posted along with the tribute, J-Lo explained to Oprah Winfrey on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ that while making the movie was “tough”, she tried her best to “absorb” the real Selena.

She said: “It was tough but I knew I had a tough job to do. From the second I got the role, it was non-stop. I was working on another movie at the time and in my trailer it was like music all day, videos all day, just to try and really absorb who she was.”

The film charted the life of the singer often known as the Queen of Tejano music – with J-Lo miming along to the real voice of Selena – and in 2021 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.