Jennifer Lopez Reflects on Selena Quintanilla and Where She'd Be Now: 'She Was a Star'

It’s been 20 years since Jennifer Lopez played her most iconic film role: the late Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla in Selena. Amid all the Quintanilla amor going on this year, including a Hollywood Walk of Fame star and Google Doodle on the search engine’s homepage, Lopez reflected on the internationally beloved musician during an interview with Spotify’s “¡Viva Latino!” on Nov. 30.

When asked what her favorite movie performance to date has been, the Shades of Blue star told the podcast it was playing the Tex-Mex Queen. “It will never lose its impact,” she said, referring to the 1997 biopic. “She was such a bright light, and she was such an amazing artist and such a talent. She was so damn talented. It’s like those things you’re born with, she just, she had the light inside her. She was a star.”

Alex Rodriguez’s love wondered where Quintanilla might be today if she were still alive: “It was sad to not see where she would be now at my age,” she said. “She would be around my age now, so it’s sad. Tragic.”

Lopez also reminisced about the tribute she paid to Quintanilla at the 2015 Billboard Latin Music Awards,  revealing that it was her idea to ask the late singer’s family to join her on stage for the performance. “It was awesome to be able to do that, that many years later—20 years later,” she said. “And to see her sister and her brother and see Chris and the rest of her band that came out. They didn’t ask me to do that. It was my idea. I was like, ‘We should get her family out here! This is 20 years!'”

“It was a beautiful moment,” she added, “It was a privilege because in the movie I don’t get to sing the songs, so to be able to finally sing them was special for me.”