Selena Gomez to play Linda Ronstadt in an upcoming biopic about the singer
Between her music career, a couple of new Food Network shows and a starring role on “Only Murders in the Building,” Selena Gomez keeps plenty busy, and now, she has a movie project in the works as well: Gomez will play Linda Ronstadt in a new biopic about the beloved singer.
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The news follows fan speculation that began when Gomez posted a picture of Ronstadt’s memoir on her Instagram story on Jan. 9. The project has been rumored for months, but now, producers have confirmed that the biopic is underway. Based on Ronstadt’s 2013 memoir “Simple Dreams,” the new movie will be produced by James Keach and Ronstadt’s manager John Boylan. So far, the team hasn’t released any further details, such as the name of the film, or other cast members.
Keach directed the 2020 film “Linda and the Mockingbirds.” The documentary follows Ronstadt and Jackson Browne as they travel to Sonora, Mexico, where Ronstadt’s grandfather was born.
Gomez shares Ronstadt’s Mexican heritage. Gomez’s paternal grandparents migrated from Monterrey, Mexico, to Texas in the 1970s, and the star has been very open about what her heritage means to her.
“I have such an appreciation for my last name,” Gomez told Dazed magazine. “I’ve rereleased a lot of music in Spanish as well, and that’s something that’s gonna happen a bit more. So there’s a lot more I would love to do because I don’t take it lightly, I’m very honored.”
Ronstadt also embraced her Mexican roots in her work. Eschewing advice from music execs who wanted her to put out mainstream music, she put out her mariachi album, “Canciones de Mi Padre,” in 1987. Critics were surprised that Ronstadt, who by then had major hits with songs like 1977’s “Blue Bayou” and her 1974 cover of “You’re No Good,” was making mariachi music.
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“I’d say it in interviews all the time — ‘I’m Mexican’ — and it was just ignored,” she told Vogue. “Like, ‘You can’t be Mexican. You have a German surname and you’re white as a lily.”
But she proved her critics wrong. “Canciones de Mi Padre” quickly went double platinum.
Ronstadt, who is now 77, has struggled to sing in recent years. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012, but that diagnosis was overturned in 2019 when she was instead diagnosed with a similar disease, progressive supranuclear palsy. She has continued to be engaged in creative projects, though, such as her 2020 documentary and her 2022 book “Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands,” which she coauthored with Lawrence Downes, and she will be involved with production of the biopic.
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