Selena Gomez confidently strolled the red carpet and took pictures at the Toronto International Film Festival, with fan yells echoing blocks away from the Princess of Wales Theatre.
However, during a premiere screening of the upcoming Netflix film "Emilia Pérez,"
the actress and singer admitted that she was "so nervous" about her first Spanish-language part.
"I ultimately ended up getting to develop a character that is very similar to myself and, I believe, a lot of Latinx communities in America,"
Gomez said Monday evening during a post-premiere Q&A for the buzzy musical crime drama, in which she stars as Emilia,
the wife of a Mexican cartel leader who undergoes gender-confirming surgery to begin a new life.
Gomez and her co-stars Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon, and Adriana Paz received the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and "Emilia Pérez"
s Gascon as both drug kingpin Manitas and Emilia, Saldana as her friend and defense attorney Rita, Gomez as Manitas' wife Jessi, and Paz as Emilia's love interest Epifania,
employs fanciful song-and-dance pieces to enrich its emotional plot.