The moment Christian Serratos heard about Selena: The Series, she was determined to land the role of real-life singer Selena Quintanilla. Knowing that she was set to begin production on the 10th season of The Walking Dead around the same time as the biographical series, the 30-year-old actress was nervous about potentially balancing it all — but nothing could stop her from going after the opportunity. And so, after months of sending in audition tapes, singing samples, and speaking with the production team over Zoom, Christian landed the lead part.
“I kind of made the decision that I was just going to terrorize everybody until I got the job,” Christian tells Good Housekeeping. “It took a long time. It was not easy, but eventually I was given the role.”
In November 2019, the cast of Selena: The Series had their first table read. Over time, Christian effortlessly transformed into Selena, portraying the legendary icon in high school and early adulthood with lots of elaborate costumes and wigs.
“[Getting] to dive into all of this wonderful 1980s and early 1990s fashion was so much fun. We tried really hard,” she tells us. “I liked [her fashion] the year she met [her husband] Chris. She was just starting to kind of find the Selena that we know."
But fashion fun aside, it was Selena's inspiring rise to success that really moved Christian. Originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, Selena began singing at age nine in her family band, Selena y Los Dinos, alongside her brother, A.B. Quintanilla III, and her sister, Suzette Quintanilla. With their father, Abraham Quintanilla, as the band’s manager, the musicians went from performing at backyard wedding receptions to playing for record-breaking audiences at the historic Astrodome in Houston.
“A lot of this story and a lot of Selena’s upbringing resonated with me, especially because we both started in the entertainment industry very young,” she says. “I’ve been in this business since I was probably five or six. And so, I felt a lot of linear moments between her life and her hard work.”
In 2004, Christian got her first big gig playing Suzie Crabgrass in the Nickelodeon series Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide. She portrayed the character for three years while also guest starring in other shows like Zoey 101, 7th Heaven, and Hannah Montana. Over the next few years, Christian became known for playing Angela Weber in the Twilight franchise and also appeared on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She later earned the role of Rosita Espinosa in AMC's The Walking Dead.
While Christian may relate to Selena's hard work in the entertainment world, she also sees other sides of herself in the music icon. Three years ago, Christian announced that she had given birth to a baby girl named Wolfgang "Wolfie" Serratos Boyd with her husband, New Politics lead singer David Boyd. Ever since having her daughter, Christian told People that she has to fend off feelings of guilt that arise when she and David have to travel for their careers. Likewise, Christian believes Selena also dealt with her fair share of guilt and pressure.
“I definitely can be a people pleaser, which isn’t a bad thing, but I also think that Selena had a lot of that," she says. "She wanted so badly to just do a good job and be accepted by everybody: Mexicans, Americans, Mexican-Americans. She so badly wanted to fulfill her own desires but not leave her family behind. [She wanted to] make her family and husband happy. These are all things people deal with, whether they’re in the entertainment industry or not, whether they’re trying to become a musician, an actor, whatever it is.”
To bring herself even closer to Selena, Christian completely immersed herself in the Queen of Tejano music's world. While Christian didn’t do a lot of her own singing in Selena: The Series, she still trained with vocal coaches and choreographers to master the icon's sound and moves. It was a lot of hard work and effort, but Christian was happy to do it to help keep Selena's memory alive.
“As a Mexican girl, I’ve always wanted to be Selena, so the fact that I was getting this opportunity to play her and bring a little bit of her spirit back was so meaningful to me,” she previously explained. “Playing her was my biggest challenge. Knowing that this woman meant so much to so many people and she has such die-hard fans, including myself, I [felt like I] had a responsibility to them, to her family, to her. I just wanted to do a good job and do it as best I could.”
And a good job she most certainly has done.
