‘Awards Chatter’ Podcast — Selena Gomez (‘Only Murders in the Building’)

“I’m grateful for where I am, but I think and I believe that I’ve barely touched the surface of what I’m able to do,” the singer/songwriter and actress Selena Gomez said during a recording last week of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast. The 29-year-old, who is currently generating best actress in a comedy series Emmy buzz for her work opposite comedy legends Steve Martin and Martin Short on the first season of Hulu‘s Only Murders in the Building, added, “I want to work with a David Fincher or a David O. Russell who will push me to the edge to go and fight for something. That’s the kind of acting that I crave to do more than anything.”

Gomez, who has been working professionally since the age of seven, first shot to prominence as the star of the Disney Channel sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place, which ran from 2007 through 2012, and the frontwoman of the band Selena Gomez and The Scene, which was active from 2008 through 2012. By her teens, she had become one of the world’s biggest celebrities — she was the first person to accumulate 100 million followers on Instagram, where she now has 327 million — thanks to a solo recording career which was skyrocketing and an on-again/off-again relationship with an equally famous young music artist.

In her twenties, she has increasingly done work — in both of her primary professions — which has earned her the sort of respect she craves. She has to her name three solo albums, all of which reached #1 on the Billboard 200, and eight singles which broke into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, including one which hit #1, 2020’s “Lose You to Love Me.” She has worked with top-tier filmmakers ranging from Harmony Korine to Jim Jarmusch to Woody Allen. And she was named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2020 and “one of the most influential pop culture icons of our time” by Rolling Stone in 2021.

Over the course of our conversation, Gomez reflected on how a girl from Texas wound up in show business in the first place, and what her experience of child stardom was like; how she sought to rebrand herself after her time on the Disney Channel, and the ways in which those efforts did and did not take; why, as she began to experience turmoil in her personal life involving physical and mental health problems and romantic turbulence, she decided to get more personal with her music, and how doing so helped her; what it has been like sharing the screen with two legends of comedy on a TV show centered on one of her great fascinations, true crime; plus much more.

Here are a few excerpts…

On growing up under the glare of the paparazzi…

“Once that started happening, I felt a little bit constricted, and I think that’s when I lost a little bit of my being a kid. Later in life I realized that I missed out on a lot.”

On getting personal with her music…

“‘The Heart Wants What It Wants’ [a 2014 single for a compilation album] was the first time that I did ever say anything… It was me saying, ‘Hey, I’m just being honest with you for a second, like, this is really hard and I know I should do x, y and z, but I can’t help it. That’s just the state I was in. Which ultimately then led to ‘Lose You to Love Me,’ which is my favorite song I’ve ever done.”

On the personal struggles — health and romantic — that she experienced during the five years between her second album, 2015’s Revival, and her third, 2020’s Rare…

“It was necessary for me to walk through those things. I had a lot of soul-searching to do. By all means I don’t have life figured out, but I do know that during that time I was learning so much about myself. I was, you know, obviously going through a really tough break-up, and then I was left with the question of my career and where am I gonna go and what’s gonna happen? It just was all of these different things I was feeling. And then my medical stuff kind of kicked in — I was dealing with my lupus and I was dealing with some kidney problems. It was actually really hard. But, being on the other side of it, I have to be honest, it’s actually been really good for me. It allowed me to develop a character where I don’t tolerate any sort of nonsense or disrespect in any way, and I’m really proud of how I came out of it.”

On ‘Lose You to Love Me,’ her first single to top the Billboard Hot 100, from Rare…

“It’s wild because we wrote the song in less than an hour… I knew that it was gonna leave some sort of impression because it was me kind of saying my goodbye, and I was really happy about it, but I was also nervous.”

On garnering her first Grammy nomination, in the category of best Latin pop album, for her first Spanish-language music, on the 2021 EP Revelacion…

“It was actually more rewarding to be nominated for that than any of my English-speaking albums because I think I put my heart and soul into that in a different way.”

On struggling to be taken seriously as a grown-up actor…

“I felt like it was very difficult for people to take me seriously… I have slowly pushed through that, and I’m really glad, but it was very frustrating. I felt like a joke, you know?”

On wanting to work with people who know more than she does…

“My best friend [Taylor Swift] always says, ‘If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.'”

On relating to her character on Only Murders in the Building (beyond the fact that they both are obsessed with ‘true crime’)…

“I would say I relate to Mabel in the sense that I can be a little lonely sometimes, and I tend to have friends that are a bit older, and I love hanging out with my mom, so I’m very much that kind of person. And so I feel Mabel.”

On playing Martin and Short the song “WAP”…

“It was hysterical. They weren’t offended, they were just confused. They were like, ‘So wait, do women like this?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess it’s a thing, you know, it’s a vibe, I don’t know.’ They’re hilarious.”

On how Martin and Short have taught her to demand more from a man…

“Being around two adult gentlemen — because that’s what they are, they are very sweet and kind and hilarious and inappropriate sometimes and it’s the best — I just learned so much. And my expectation for a man, to be honest, or any human, is to be as decent as these two human beings are. They have been doing this longer than I’ve been alive, and they are the kindest people.”

On her current projects and headspace…

“I finished season two, I did my cooking show, and now I’m gonna be in the studio until season three. So basically we’re going to be just working on new music. Like I said, I couldn’t do one or the other. I actually love both… My therapist is like, ‘Girl, are you ever gonna find a man?!’ I’m like, ‘I dunno'”… But I do feel like right now, in my life, I am just so open, and I love what I do… I just am in a really good space right now, and I’m enjoying it.”

On what her life would look like if she had never left Texas for Hollywood…

“I would have four kids, for sure. Maybe not planned, maybe planned, maybe both. And there’s nothing wrong with the life I would have led… I just know that that’s not my path, and I’m really grateful I had my mom to give me that opportunity to be what I want to be.”

On her upcoming 30th birthday (July 22)…

“I am happy getting older. I find that my toleration for any sort of discomfort, usually disrespect or whatever, even just unnecessary stuff — I feel so glad that it’s not taking over me anymore. My emotions are mine and I am allowed to feel them however I want to feel them. But I am having a party because I was like, ‘You know what? All my friends back home are married with kids, so I’m just gonna throw my own party.”