Selena Gomez Reflects on <i>Wizards of Waverly Place</i>: ‘I Was the Happiest I Had Been My Whole Life’
Selena Gomez spoke earlier this month to Vanity Fair about how being a Disney Channel star brought its fair share of trauma, admitting, “Sometimes I get triggered. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my past, it’s just that I’ve worked so hard to find my own way. I don’t want to be who I was. I want to be who I am.”
But the experience of shooting her show Wizards of Waverly Place with her on-set family was one of the happiest periods of her life, Gomez revealed on her former co-stars Jennifer Stone and David DeLuise’s Wizards of Waverly Pod podcast, out today. She reunited with her on-screen best friend (Stone) and on-screen dad (DeLuise) to reminisce on her experience making the series.
“I can’t imagine it any other way,” Gomez admitted. “I remember being nervous, but as long as David [DeLuise] was there, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m good.’ At the beginning, I was like, ‘Well, I just don’t want a new family.’ I felt like I bonded with everyone. Little did I know that I ended up with everyone I needed to be in my life. I think I felt safe, and that’s a really hard thing for me to feel. I know that you guys love me for me. There’s not really… You guys genuinely loved me, and that’s all I could have asked for, the unconditional trust and bond we had, I miss so much.” She added later that as grateful as she is for all the projects she worked on, “I tell people all the time I’ve never had that feeling that I’ve had with the whole Wizards crew, not just you guys.”
“I can’t begin to tell you guys without making it such a little cry session,” she continued later. “I felt like I was the happiest I had been my whole life, and I don’t want that to be a sad thought, because I’m really grateful and happy, but it was definitely the happiest times for me. I recognize that obviously it’s because I have this different attention on me [Gomez is now an A-list star and was just a child star then] that I just didn’t have then, and that was a really pure time, and I miss that.”
The three discussed a lot during Gomez’s appearance on the show. You can listen in full here and find highlights below.
Selena Gomez with Jennifer Stone on Wizards of Waverly Place.
Gomez felt really comfortable playing her character Alex Russo from the time she auditioned.
“I actually feel most comfortable with this character more than I’ve felt with anything else. It was really great. I just remember testing, and I felt really good about it.”
Gomez took emotion from her real-life breakups at the time and used it on the show.
“I remember I was actually going through a breakup, or it was 18 million breakups, but I remember I had to shoot this scene where I was crying over Mason [Gomez’s character Alex Russo’s love interest, played by Gregg Sulkin], and I allowed myself to just feel sad. I thought it was so beautiful to have Maria [Canals-Barrera, Gomez’s on-screen mom] there, and just the way I felt close to her meant so much to me.”
Jennifer Stone, Selena Gomez, and Gregg Sulkin while shooting Wizards of Waverly Place.
Gomez’s biggest regret is not staying in touch with Stone and DeLuise, and Stone spoke honestly about feeling dropped as a friend.
“I know I wasn’t really… I think I slowly became kind of shamed. I felt ashamed of the decisions that I made,” she said. “I didn’t want you guys to see me in the state that I was in, because A, you would have told me the truth, which terrifies me, and B, I didn’t want to let you down.”
Stone told her, “I appreciate you saying that too, because to be perfectly blunt, there has been times where I’m like, ‘Did we stop being friends because I didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear?’ You know what I mean?”
Gomez replied, “Of course, they’re all valid, and I appreciate you guys dearly. I love you so much in a way that I’ve never loved anybody else.”
Gomez had to hide her love of Friends while shooting the show.
DeLuise told Gomez, “I asked how you had such impeccable timing. You guys were so clever and funny so young, and you said to me, ‘Don’t tell anybody, but I’ve watched every episode of Friends.’ I guess you weren’t allowed to watch Friends or something? But… I was just going to say you were very influenced by them, right?”
“1,000 percent,” Gomez replied. “Now I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of them, and I freak out to this day.”
Stone asked, “But why, at 14, did you say, ‘Don’t say anything’?”
Gomez replied, “I think it was because I wasn’t really… Actually, I do know why. It triggered certain people. I just had to be annoyingly shy about it.”
Selena Gomez with David DeLuise in a still from Wizards of Waverly Place.
Gomez would write the initials of her crushes, including Dylan and Cole Sprouse, on set.
Stone said, “I remember you would write, whoever you were dating at the time, you would write S plus whatever initial on the back of that… …of the set, of that swing set that would come out for the… I just remember that.”
Gomez would write the boy’s name in Sharpie, then cross it out and add the new crush’s name whenever it changed. “Yeah, honestly, [I remember that],” Gomez said. “You know what? Yes. I remember I had it about Cole and Dylan Sprouse at one time. I was a hopeless romantic.”
Gomez’s little sister Grace watches the show now and doesn’t like her character.
“I have a little sister, and she’s nine,” she said. “So she’s fallen in love with the show. Even before she was born, sometimes I would be by myself, and I would just throw on an episode to fall asleep to. I just loved it.” Her favorite character, “ I don’t know if she has one, because she gets mad at my character a lot. I think she’s got a crush on David [Henrie, who played Gomez’s on-screen older brother].”
You can watch the full interview below:
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Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
