Pop Culture: Jennifer Lopez as Selena

Jennifer Lopez cast as Selena
Gregory Nava’s decision to cast Jennifer Lopez as Selena was initially met with a backlash from a small section of the Latino community for being the wrong kind of Latina to play the slain Tejano singer. ''I know a few people were protesting, but in Corpus [Christi, Tex., Selena's hometown] everyone has been really supportive,'' insisted Lopez, who endured a grueling test that Nava remembers included ''nine minutes of singing and dancing and eight pages of script.'' Lopez put in the time to perfect Selena's dialect and study performance footage. “This is someone who's fresh in the public's mind,'' reasoned the Puerto Rican-American actress. ''So you need to do your homework on this gig.'' In the end, Lopez silenced the critics with her breakthrough performance and eventually became a singing sensation in her own right!

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