Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; Steve Granitz/FilmMagic
Selena Gomez will portray Linda Ronstadt in an upcoming biopic, Rolling Stone confirms.
Fans began speculating about the possible casting online after Gomez posted an Instagram story about Ronstadt's 2013 memoir Simple Dreams (she also announced in another story that she was taking a break from social media). The biopic is currently in pre-production, with Ronstadt's manager John Boylan and James Keach co-producing. Further casting details and a release date have not yet been announced.
Ronstadt and Gomez are both of Mexican descent. In 2022, Ronstadt released her album Feels Like Home, which included stories about her heritage and Sonoran recipes. The 2020 film Linda and the Nightingale Thrushes – directed by Keach – documented her visit to Mexico with Jackson Browne the year before, where they worked with the students of Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy.
The documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice was released later in 2019. Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the film chronicled her incredible multi-genre career that spanned nearly five decades, including her dominance of the country-rock scene in the '70s, her Pirates of Penzance Broadway moment and more. “At the end I was tired [of watching it]” she told Rolling Stone. “I thought, 'I can't believe I've done so much!'”
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Ronstadt retired from singing after she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2012. Her last performance was three years earlier at San Antonio's Municipal Auditorium (“They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die,” she told us, “But that's what happens when…”) You also dress “back from singing”). In 2021, she sold her catalog to Irving Azoff's Iconic Artists Group.
Recent biographies about Queen, Elton John, Mötley Crüe and Elvis Presley introduced their music to a whole new generation. It seems like a safe bet that this phenomenon will happen to Ronstadt after this film hits theaters.