An interview with Selena producers Robert Katz and Moctezuma Esparza


How long ago did this thing happen? Who got the idea to make the movie?

MOCTEZUMA ESPARZA: My daughter (Danuncing) got the idea to make the movie, and she was a fan of Selena's. She was almost 15 at the time, and she really insisted that this was a movie that I should get involved with. Bob and I talked about it and we felt that it was not the sort of movie that we would be interested in making. It was more than likely Hollywood would take an approach of looking for the sensational, the exploitive, the terrible way in which she died, and that just wasn't anything that we were interested in.

Several months went by and my daughter continued to insist that I was missing the boat, and that I didn't understand who Selena was, and that there was a wonderful movie here. So, several more months went by and she kept insisting, so I finally went out and got a documentary about her, read a book, listened to all her music, and I realized that there was a story here about a family, and about an American dream that they had all pursued together, where the sister was a drummer, the brother was a songwriter and producer, the father was the manager, and the mother was part of the road crew-- and where they had been together struggling to achieve their dreams for many, many years. And they had achieved success. They were, you know, a really successful group, and Selena was right on the cusp of crossing over, and her last album in fact crossed over. It was a tremendous success.

So, given that, Bob and I talked again about the possibilities, and he encouraged me to go on down to Corpus Christi and meet with the family, and we did. And we were literarlly the last production company, the last producers to approach them. They were already negotiating with somebody else. We proposed to them that what we wanted to do was to work together with them, make the movie together in a partnership, and they responded to that. Everyone else had just said, you know, "we want to option the material," you know, "here's some money," and we felt all along that what was important, that in order to gain their trust, in order to make a movie that was as intimate and deep and personal about the family, that we needed to work together. And so that's what moved us to take that approach, and that's how we got involved.

How did the idea come about of working with the family?

BOB KATZ: Well it's really the way Moctezuma and I have always worked. We've always been very collaborative, whether it's with a writer or the person who-- you know, we've done a lot of bios in our time. It just is natural to us to do that, and especially in a story like this in which the family is the subject of the movie, and we felt that, you know, this had to be done not only with their cooperation but with their enthusiasm and blessing, and obviously the best way to do that was have them do it with us.

There is always some kind of a conflict in an artistic project. Was there conflict in making Selena?

ESPARZA: Well, Abraham became the executive producer, and our partner, and given that, he from the very beginning was in a position to know exactly what we were doing and how we were approaching things, and we agree upfront that he would have script approval, and that he would also approve the key casting, and that we would do it (in essence) together. We each had veto power over the other. And so the approach that we took is that once we agreed that Gregory Nava was the best director/writer for the movie, Gregory spent months with the family, living with them, interviewing their friends, their business associates, the relatives-- and getting all of the information that he possibly could.

He went away for three or four months, wrote a script, and we then read it to them--to Abraham and his wife--and that was a very emotional experience.

You actually read it out loud?

ESPARZA: We actually--Gregory Nava actually read the script out loud to them, moment to moment, beat by beat, word by word. And it was very emotionally draining for them. You know, they cried many times. And at the end of reading the script, they said they didn't want a word changed--that we had actually captured what we had hoped to, which was the feeling of the joy and the spirit of their life, the struggle, the triumphs, and several things which were new to her fans, that the family had consented to share with us, with at first great trepidation. But since there have been so many rumors--

--about the relationship with her husband?

ESPARZA: Exactly. How she and her husband got together and married is a complete surprise to the fans when they finally see it, because that had been really--how shall we say?--hidden from them. It had been cast in a completely different light by the family. But since Abraham had heard so many terrible things put out into the press--about their relationship, what they were doing--he allowed himself to be shown in not a favourable light. And ultimately what we shared with him was "Abraham, if you let us tell the truth, people will ultimately admire and love this family, because the family worked through its problems together and survived together and even though they had rough times and arguments the love comes through, and that's what is most important. And so he accepted that and he let us do that and he asked for no changes. And the script that we read to him--that Gregory Nava read--is the movie. And so, throughout this collaborative process, it was all based on that first script.

Have you worked with Gregory before?

KATZ: No, we hadn't worked with Gregory before, but we all knew each other pretty well, and actually had had some involvement over the years with him in talking about various projects. Actually, Mocte had helped to market ("My Family/Mi Familia") because New Line had it and didn't quite know what to do with the Latino marketplace. But we all knew each other and had been talking doing something, and actually Gregory was the guy to do this movie. When it all came down to it, he was the only choice we had. There wasn't anybody else.

ESPARZA: Gregory and I went to school together. So we were in film school together, and had known each other for a long time, and had talked about maybe working together from time to time. So this was a perfect and wonderful opportunity.

This is also very much a story about struggle and although it ends very tragically, this movie seems to me very joyful, and all about overcoming obstacles, rather than the obstacles themselves.

KATZ: Well this is really--we set out, our intent, was to do a celebration of her life, not to do a movie that was anything other than that. And the more we got into finding out about who this family was, how they lived their lives, they truly do live a celebration of life. I mean, they went through all of the classic struggles of an American family who reach a success--who has a dream, a vision, a goal. And they actually obtained it, but they held their "familia" together. And it is today a joyfull family other than this terrible tragedy that befell them. I mean, these are people that when you hang around with them, you have to love them.

I want to ask you about the audience for this movie. Is this a crossover movie? Is this a general movie? Do you think it's going to have mainly a key flow of the fans? Is it mainly a Latino movie? Or--?

KATZ: The truth is that this is a "movie" movie. And of course there is a Selena audience of Latinos, but our intention from the day we started out on this movie was to a make a movie. To remind you of another Latino movie that was about Latinos, but was a "movie" movie was "La Bamba," which was truly a "movie" movie. And that's the way we targetted this. You know, it's really interesting--nobody talks about Marty Scorsese's movies as an "Italian" movie--an "Italian-American experience"--it's an American movie. This is really, truly an American movie. It just happens to be about a Latino family--a Mexican-American family.

ESPARZA: Our joy is in having made a movie that is really, really pleasing the audiences. The few screenings that we've attended--both one in Thousand Oaks, which was primarily an Anglo-American audience, and screenings here in Manhattan, and screenings in a Latino neighborhood in Southern California--they've all responded to the movie in just the most gratifying, heartwarming way. They laugh, they clap, you know--they cry, they feel the emotions, they go with the journey. Yeah, I think it's a movie for everybody.

KATZ: It's also--one of the nice things about this movie for us is this is not only a movie about you know, a family--family values--but it's a movie for the whole family. I mean, this is a movie that everybody can come to. The kid's love it, and their families--their adults--their mothers and fathers, everybody will come to this movie and enjoy it. So it isn't like it's for a niche audience.

Tell me about putting the stadium show together in the Astrodome. What did you have to go through to actually make that happen?

ESPARZA: We planned that out three months in advance. And, basically we decided that the way to make it work was to make the entire community our partners in the success. So we went to the local newspaper and the radio stations, we went to the organizations, we put together a team inside of our production unit that was exclusively devoted to promoting and recruiting our audience. And 34,000 people showed up and spent the entire day with us to make that happen. It was an incredible experience.

People came from as far as Chicago, didn't they?

ESPARZA: There were people that came from all over. People came from Mexico, from Chicago, they came from El Paso, Mexico City, you know--to San Antonio, Texas. Her fans came from all over, and they stayed the whole day. And it was a lot of fun. You know, we gave a lot of posters away. We gave t-shirts away. We auctioned off--we didn't auction off--we raffled off a pick-up truck. And it was really wonderful, the young girl who won it had never won anything before in her life, and she gave the truck to her mother, and that was really great. And so, we had Paul Rodriguez as a master of ceremonies, who entertained everybody while we were putting together our filming takes. And we used the same technique to recruit people for the Monterey concert, and for several other concerts, and the fans just really responded. We couldn't have made this movie without their support.

How do you control volunteers like this, for instance in the Monterey scene, the stage begins to collapse and it's actually dangerous, or at least it appears to be dangerous. How were you stage-managing that?

ESPARZA: Well, that's movie magic. (LAUGHS) That's insert photography second unit. You know, the actual scenes where the mass audiences are being filmed--none of that danger occurred. So, those are trade secrets, so to speak.

KATZ: Actually, I didn't want to let Mocte know, but you asked the question. The truth was that the stage was collapsing, and if it hadn't been for the people getting there just in time, Jennifer would have landed on the ground.

(pause)

Is that true?

(Laughter from Katz and Esparza)

KATZ: No, it's a joke, it's a joke!

(All laugh)

The performances--were the actors actually playing? Was it recordings of Selena? Was Jennifer--were they Selena's vocal tracks on top of new material?

KATZ: It was all Selena's voice. Jennifer is a terrific singer, so what made this work was that she was actually singing. We just didn't use her voice. Everybody else was playing. But we were using, when we went to the mix--we used the tracks--the Selena tracks.

And she matched the performance?

KATZ: Oh, she was wonderful. She had rehearsed this for many, many months. Her dance techniques were unique to Selena, because Jennifer's a trained dancer. Selena was just a natural untrained dancer.

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