Selena Gomez: ‘I Signed My Life Away to Disney at a Very Young Age’
As Selena Gomez prepares for a more “sophisticated” stage of her television career, the former Wizards of Waverly Place star is looking back at her time on the Disney Channel.
“I signed my life away to Disney at a very young age and I didn’t know what I was doing,” the 29-year-old told reporters during an appearance at the Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour, per Complex. Now, she’s looking forward to playing a character that’s her “actual age” in the upcoming Hulu series, Only Murders in the Building.
Gomez will star as Mabel Mora alongside Martin Short and Steve Martin in the series which follows a group of true crime enthusiasts investigating a death inside their swanky New York City apartment building. The 10-episode series, which was co-created by Martin and John Hoffman, will premiere on August 31.
“What I’d say is the level of sophistication of the material is the first reason why I wanted to do this,” Gomez said when asked to compare her time on Disney Channel to her current experience, per Entertainment Tonight. “But when I was a kid, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just running around on set and now I just feel like a sponge and I soak up all the wisdom that I can.”
She added, “It’s just it’s really nice to be back on TV and it’s nice to be cast as my actual age, which never happens. So I am very happy to be doing this.”
Selena Gomez’s fellow Disney alum Miley Cyrus recently opened up about her time on Hannah Montana in an appearance on Kevin Hart’s Peacock talk show, Hart to Heart.
“The concept of the show is that when I would alter my image and I would put on a wig and I would put on sparkly things that I held a new value. That I was valuable,” she said, per Elle. “It did translate into my real life. There was a different level of, like, hysteria when Hannah…the way that kids would react at these Hannah shows, versus when I was myself and I would meet fans out, it was different. And so, again, on that kind of psychological level, I guess that’s kind of why originally when I started doing solo projects as my own identity, I’d almost create kind of alter-egos of myself.”
