Even though it seems like it was only yesterday, this month marks the 25th-anniversary of Jennifer Lopez's groundbreaking biopic, Selena — a film that details the life, rise, and tragic death of Selena Quintanilla Pérez.
Since then, J. Lo herself has gone and risen to the upper echelon of fame and superstardom. As a way of paying homage to the movie that helped get her there, here are 15 facts about Selena that fans may not have known.
in order for J. Lo to get a better feel and understanding of who Selena really was, she decided to go and live with Selena's sister, Suzette Quintanilla, for four months prior to filming.
The way the story goes is that director Gregory Nava had to fight tooth and nail to not have a white-faced caucasian actress play the part — a battle which he inevitably won.
Salma explained during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that the studio offered her the part roughly one-week after Selena's passing. Salma said that she turned it down because she found it in poor taste.
If you notice in the film, whenever we see Chris playing the guitar, it's always a close-up of his hands. That's because actor Jon Seda had no idea how to play the instrument, so the real-life Chris Perez stepped in to handle the musical parts.
Selena was tragically taken from this earth in March of 1995 — almost 27 years to the day. The film Selena was released on March 21st, 1997, almost exactly two years after her death.
For all her hard work, Jennifer Lopez was paid $1 million. For comparison's sake, Sofia Vergara made more than $43 million during her tenure as Gloria Pritchett on Modern Family.
Selena never shared that information with her father before she died. It wasn't until Abraham Quintanilla read the script for the film that he finally came to realize how it happened.
That's the beauty of movie magic — anyone can be made to look any age they want! According to an interview Constance gave, she had to spend four hours a day in the makeup chair in order to make herself look older.
It's not that Abraham Quintanilla had anything against Edward James Olmos, but rather he had his heart set on Rubén Blades portraying him in the film. Sadly, Rubén was unable to commit due to a scheduling conflict.
Well, it was technically filmed on location — just not at the Astrodome. Instead, the director packed 35,000 extras into the Alamodome in San Antonio Texas.
"God sent me that role for a reason, so I could learn from her, so I could always have her as an inspiration," J. Lo explained via Instagram. "She was the most beautiful, sweet, wonderful person."
When the news first broke that Jennifer would be portraying Selena on the big screen, a number of Latino advocacy groups began griping that she was "the wrong kind" of Latina to play the part.
You can understand why a father would have second thoughts about his daughter's grisly murder being displayed for millions of moviegoers all over the world. However, the director felt strongly that it was the dramatic end the film needed.
That's not altogether true. Technically, J. Lo sings a grand total of three words throughout the entire movie. Other than that, it's Selena's pitch-perfect vocals that fans are hearing all throughout the film.
Abraham Quintanilla is a much bigger person than Edward James Olmos in real life. In order to look the part and appear convincing, Edward had to pack on close to 50 lbs.
