Selena Gomez Shakes Off Dating Rumors, Poised For Big 2016
Selena Gomez is on the verge. Despite the constant press surrounding a possible love triangle involving former flame Justin Beiber and current supposed hookup Niall Horan from One Direction, the 23-year old actress/singer is enjoying a career boom.
And the website Bustle agrees, citing her cameo in Adam McKay’s new film The Big Short, starring Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell as a prime example of a star that’s ready to really shine.
“With The Big Short, Gomez is proving that her film career is following in the footsteps of her music by moving in a more mature direction.”
The film, also featuring Brad Pitt, tackles the housing bubble and financial crisis of 2008, with celebrities tasked to explain the more complicated aspects of the movie to its audience.
“Gomez, for example, is tasked with explaining a synthetic C.D.O. — not exactly what you’d expect from the woman whose last film credit was Hotel Transylvania 2.”
And speaking of Hotel Transylvania 2, the animated film was yet another notch in an ever-growing 2015 belt of success that Gomez has enjoyed. Selena lent her voice alongside other notable Hollywood stars like Adam Sandler, Steve Buscemi,and even Mel Brooks. The film grossed over $167 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo, and combined with the foreign ticket receipts, nearly topped $300 million worldwide.
Selena’s next move in 2016 will also find her conquering the small screen in a new, more mature fashion, thanks to a 13-episode order of the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why as reported by Variety. As many of her fans know, Selena Gomez was a staple on the Disney Channel when she was younger, breaking out big on the hit show Wizards of Waverly Place. Portraying a teenage girl in a family of wizards helped propel Gomez into the mainstream where she became a household name for both acting and singing. Gomez even recorded the theme song for the show.
With her move to Netflix, however, Selena’s next turn on television will be a huge step up for her career, introducing her to a completely new audience. The show, adapting the best-selling young adult novel of the same name by Jay Asher, tells the stories of the late Hannah Baker, a high school student who committed suicide. Gomez will take on the role of narrator of a series of cassette tapes recorded by Hannah that details the reasons behind taking her own life.
“On the tapes,” Variety first reported, “which are mailed with instructions to pass along from one student to another, Hannah explains to twelve peers how they each played a role in her death, by giving thirteen reasons explaining why she took her life.”
In addition to tackling material her fans may not be used to, Gomez may also find a different kind of critical success by working with Netflix. The streaming service has quickly become the place for cutting edge dramas that included breakout critical and commercial successes like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black.
Selena’s music career continues to trend upward as well. Her latest music video, “Hands to Myself,” showed a sultry side to Selena not seen in her Disney days. And while the talk surrounding the steamy content centered around her ex-Justin Bieber, as reported by TheInquistr, the song itself is exploding on the charts.
According to Billboard, “Hands To Myself,” the third release off her successful Revival album, blasted into the top five on the Billboard + Twitter Top Tracks chart dated Jan. 9, which is a “weekly ranking of the most shared and/or mentioned songs on Twitter in the U.S.”
With all this happening for Selena Gomez and despite constant dating rumors swirling around Niall Horan or her ex, Justin Bieber, 2016 looks to be her most successful year to come.
[Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images]
