Selena: The Series star Noemi Gonzalez dishes on Part 2 of the Netflix drama
Selena: The Series Part 2 arrived on Netflix this week, so Netflix Life checked in with Noemi Gonzalez, who stars as Suzette Quintanilla in the hit drama. Suzette wasn’t just Selena’s sister, but she was also her drummer—and she served as an executive producer when Netflix brought their story to the screen.
Hear what Noemi had to say about taking on the role and how much the story of Selena means to fans around the world before you stream Part 2—or binge-watch the whole season—on Netflix now.
Netflix Life: What’s the reaction you’ve been getting now that Selena: The Series has been out for a while? How are people responding to this version of her story?
Noemi Gonzalez: People are loving to see this side of Selena. People are really excited about that. I think people really appreciate the background on Abraham and A.B. really helping facilitate and supporting their daughter and sister respectively. It’s wonderful to get people to see how much it takes to really support a star in the making.
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NL: The Jennifer Lopez film is what many people know, but the show is much more broad. Did you learn more about Selena as a result of the series?
NG: I knew a lot because I grew up watching Selena before the movie came out. My mom and I followed her career very, very strongly when she was appearing on Mexican variety shows. And then I had a connection to her, being raised [as a] Jehovah’s Witness, and then finding out that her family and her also were raised [as] Jehovah’s Witnesses; there was a strong connection there. I really knew so much about her that I almost feel like it’s wrong that I haven’t been to the Selena museum yet. (laughs)
I think the surprising thing that came up was when meeting Suzette; she told me that she is left-handed, but was playing with a right-handed [drum] kit. That, to me, is wild based off of everything else that I had known, and it was also really insightful to have that information.
[There are] other little things that I’m sure you all will really enjoy in Part 2 as well, that were a little surprising for me. But for the most part, I’m such a huge fan that I definitely knew a good amount of stuff. I was the encyclopedia fan on set.
NL: Not every actor plays their own instruments, so how much drumming did you do while portraying Suzette?
NG: They definitely had me drumming. I drummed twice a week for an hour in preparation [for]
production, but I rehearsed every day for 30 minutes to film the musical sequences. There were definitely some days where I was drumming all day, and I definitely gained a little injury from rocking out really hard.
It was really, really fun to go through the experience of all the rock and roll vibe, the music, the challenge of being humbled by the demanding drum kit, and then to have this connection with Selena in this way and her music and with my character. The drumming was such a huge aspect to it. That was a wonderful element on top of being an actor on set.
I had to learn to balance out my rehearsal in both my study of lines and study of the music and what performance we’re at, which year, all that kind of stuff. It was just so cool to get that layered experience with the musical life of Selena y Los Dinos.
NL: Portraying a real person is always a challenge, and with Suzette Quintanilla being one of the executive producers of the show, how did you approach playing her? It seems like you had so many different resources to draw upon.
NG: Because of COVID-19 and filming, I didn’t end up meeting Suzette until two weeks before we were wrapped. So it was kind of fate to watch all that I could find of her in interviews. It seemed like she was having a wonderful time. It seemed like she was doing the job, taking the time, and making sure she was hitting those crashes. And I’d ask myself, where was she in her journey?
Wherever there were pockets that I couldn’t find material of her, that’s definitely where I leaned into creative license of what I could imagine it had been for her. In these moments in the series that are a day in the life, as opposed to a side-by-side comparison of what happened. It was wonderful to have that opportunity in that space so I could do my variation.
NL: Is there anything in Selena: The Series Part 2 that you’re particularly excited for fans to get to see?
NG: Selfishly, I wanted my experience on the drums. I wanted my experience as a rock star, keeping the support and the timing for this amazing music and to have the experience of what we watched in the movie. We didn’t have the luxury of going to the Houston Astrodome; I really would have wanted to do that. I had to embody the soundstage with imagery of her concerts in
my head from archives or from the movie.
I really was excited to do all the performances for me in that regard, but also for the collective. I was really, really looking forward to doing a lot of love and favor to the Selena-Suzette bond. I felt like it was talked about in the movie, but the show clearly shows in depth the sisterhood, and the support, and the bond and dynamic between Selena and Suzette. That’s definitely legendary too. I definitely was happy that that was a huge element that got to be presented in the show.
NL: Especially being a fan yourself, is there anything you hope Netflix viewers take away when they’ve finished Selena: The Series?
NG: I hope that people really see what it takes for a family of humble means to give all their love and support to their family member that they believe in, and they can see in the Quintanillas how to survive when times are rough, and see that Latinos definitely have an element of comedy that makes life experiences feel lighter.
And I hope that in these times, people can watch this show and feel that light, radiant energy from Selena’s music, from A.B.’s production behind it, from the family teaching her how to give and share all this goodness, all this radiance so that people can have a wonderful time, so that people can feel seen. So people can dance and sing with their hearts. I hope that people watch this and see Selena as an example [of] what to do when the going gets rough and to be a light and to have some fun. I think that a lot of people can relate to that in watching the show.
I would love to just express the importance of seeing this anew. I know we know the movie, I know we know her story, but we’ve never seen it presented this way. And when you see it as a whole, with her kind of finding herself in the ’80s as the artist you see coming, that we know more so in the ’90s, when you get to see Part One and Two, I hope people register the beauty of this show and how it has its own amazing vibe of getting to tell her story literally from the moment she was born.
And I hope people can really see how much effort and energy the cast, crew, production—that everyone was so full of love and light, giving so much to this story because they knew that audiences were going to watch it eagerly. We did all this while filming under COVID restrictions; the majority of the second part that we had new set dynamics.
We gave so much from the top. Obviously we love Selena. We knew what we signed up for wanting to give everything we could to her and her story and her music, but to also give while we were in a global pandemic. We put all our hearts into it. We were away from our loved ones while we were doing this on top of being in a lockdown so that we could give this story variation, [do] much justice to the truth of her beginning, middle, and an unfortunate end, and I just hope people can really see how much labor was done for the fruit of all things Selena presented in this version. I hope you guys really enjoy all the love that we put into it.
Selena: The Series Part 2 is now streaming on Netflix. Part 1 is also still available.