The casting call asked for cheering, enthusiastic Selena fans.
It was not a tough ask.
Fans of the slain Tejano superstar started lining up 12 hours before the Alamodome opened on a Sunday morning 30 years ago. What drew them was a call for volunteers to fill the arena, which was standing in for the Houston Astrodome, the site of one of the singer’s final performances.
By 9 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1996, thousands were waiting outside, according to newspaper archives. An hour or so later, the excited but well-behaved crowd began filling the Alamodome, one of several San Antonio locations where film crews and actors worked to capture the singer’s life story.
The depictions were for a $20 million biopic of Selena Quintanilla Perez, who was killed about 18 months earlier.
The singer was fatally shot by her former fan club president, Yolanda Saldivar, who was convicted of murder a few months later and sentenced to life in prison. She was denied parole last year.
Talk of bringing the singer’s story to the big screen started weeks after her death.
Around 6,000 hopefuls, above, answer a casting call in San Antonio on March 16, 1996, for “Selena.” | File photo
Following a much-publicized national search, Jennifer Lopez, a rising star who had about a dozen television and movie credits to her name, was cast to portray the beloved singer. Her transformation included learning Selena’s stage moves and singing style, though Lopez lip-synched to the singer’s vocals throughout the film.
For the Alamodome shoot, Lopez wore a replica of the singer’s now-famous sparkly purple jumpsuit.
The Alamodome was made to look like the Astrodome, where Selena performed during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in February 1995. The transformation included covering the cement floor with a mixture of sawdust, dirt and wood shavings to resemble rodeo arena dirt.
It took about 30 minutes for the roughly 34,000 extras to fill about half the Alamodome, according to news accounts. The unpaid extras were given various incentives, including movie posters, buttons and T-shirts.
Filming continued through September in San Antonio before moving to other Texas cities, including Corpus Christi, Lake Jackson and Poteet, where filmmakers shot outdoor concert scenes depicting one of Selena’s shows in Monterrey, Mexico.
Months before the Alamodome shoot, San Antonio had another big role in capturing the singer’s story on screen. The nationwide search for who would play the film version of Selena kicked off on March 16, 1996, at Market Square.
Jennifer Lopez, right, portrays the superstar during the filming of the Monterrey concert scene in Poteet. | File photo
About 6,000 hopefuls —many clad in bustiers and spandex pants reminiscent of the singer’s now-iconic outfits — answered the casting call.
San Antonio was one of four cities picked for the national tryouts. Other stops were Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami — all chosen because of their large Latina populations, according to newspaper archives.
The San Antonio tryouts resulted in the casting of the film’s young Selena, with Rebecca Lee Meza, a Mexican American singer from Harlingen, getting the part. It would be her only acting role.
Though Meza was a talented singer, she lip-synched to the voice of Jennifer Peña, a San Antonio native who would go on to have a singing career managed by Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr.
“Selena” was released in March 1997 to mostly positive reviews, and it grossed $35 million worldwide. In 2021, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, a U.S. program that safeguards films deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically” significant.