Selena Movie Almost Didn’t Film Pivotal Hospital Scene, Says Star

Selena star Constance Marie recalls filming the movie’s emotional hospital scene. After getting her start as a dancer, the Mexican-American actress first broke onto the acting scene with a role in the 1988 film Salsa. Over the years, a few of her most notable performances have come in the Dirty Dancing TV series, Selena opposite Jennifer Lopez, and the long-running ABC sitcom George Lopez. Marie can now be seen in Amazon Prime’s new Latinx romantic comedy series With Love.

Based on the real life and death of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the 1997 film, written and directed by Gregory Nava, follows the titular Texas-born Tejano singer who rose from cult status to selling chart-topping albums on the Latin music charts and performing sold-out shows at the Astrodome in Houston. Selena starred Jennifer Lopez in her breakout role, along with Edward James Olmos and Marie as the pop star’s parents, Abraham and Marcella Quintanilla. In the years since its release, the biopic has garnered a reputation as a cult classic.

Now, during an appearance on the Art of Kindness podcast hosted by Robert Peterpaul, Marie reflected on filming Selena‘s hospital scene, calling the entire day “incredibly hard.” The actress remembers that “nobody wanted to shoot” the emotional scene, and there was apparently some doubt on set that they were even going to go through with it. Read what Marie had to say below:

Then, of course, we had to shoot the scene that nobody wanted to shoot which was when she made it to the hospital. That day was incredibly hard. There was, ‘are we doing this or are we not?’ It was just very dramatic if we even were going to film it.

Marie went on to elaborate on the scene during the interview, calling it the “longest, most horribly emotionally drenching” day of filming. The climactic scene in question takes place at the end of the movie after Selena is shot by the president of her own fan club, Yolanda Saldívar, and is rushed to the hospital. What follows is a deeply emotional scene set to Selena singing “Dreaming of You” in which her closest friends and family, including her parents, are informed of her death at the hospital.

Selena’s fabled life and career has not only lived on through the 1997 film, but a new Netflix series starring The Walking Dead‘s Christian Serratos as Selena, chronicling her humble beginnings, rise to fame, and the difficult choices that made it all possible. The pop star’s tragic story has had an incredible effect on so many lives, and it will continue to touch more in the years to come. For those looking to relive the film’s emotional hospital scene, Selena is now streaming on HBO Max.

Source: Art of Kindness

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Adam Bentz
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Adam Bentz is a movie and TV news writer for Screen Rant. From a young age, Adam has been interested in a wide range of movies and television, but it was talented auteurs like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Aaron Sorkin who ultimately sparked his interest in the craft. Motivated by his love for the screen, Adam studied creative writing with a concentration in screenwriting at Southern New Hampshire University.

After graduating, Adam interned as a writer with The Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization working to end extreme poverty. Other than writing for Screen Rant, Adam reviews films on his website adambentz.wordpress.com

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