“I have not stopped shaking since I got on this carpet,” Selena Gomez admitted to The Hollywood Reporter at the Wednesday night premiere of her new documentary My Mind and Me. “I am very excited that it’s happening but I’m also nervous because it is super vulnerable and I am sharing a lot of myself, so we’ll see what happens!”
The Apple TV+ film — whose world premiere served as opening night of Los Angeles’ AFI Fest — follows six years of Gomez’s life, spanning from the 2016 cancellation of her Revival tour (due to anxiety and depression) to her lupus and mental health struggles. Her family, friends and Texas hometown are also featured in the Alek Keshishian-directed film, which offers a rare unfiltered look at her struggles.
Looking back at footage of her 24-year-old self making comments about her appearance, Gomez said she “felt bad for how I was portrayed — I really was talking about my body and I was judging myself and the whole thing was really confusing and sad.” The project is so honest, she added, that she’s watched a few different scenes “but I don’t think I could ever watch it again, to be honest,” she told THR. “I think it was wonderful. I think it was painful and beautiful, but I don’t need to visit that anymore. I’m past that.”
As for her hopes for the film, particularly for her young fans, Gomez wants it to be a mental health conversation starter: “I hope when and if you do watch the film that the moment it ends it starts a conversation with your family that hopefully can expand with your friends at school or have sort of a breakthrough of your own,” she said.
Keshishian — who found fame with 1991 Madonna doc Truth or Dare, and is also the brother of Gomez’s manager — first started filming the star six years ago after initial discussion of a tour doc; at that time, though, she was “going through a lot of pain in her transition from child star to young woman,” he said, and didn’t feel she was ready for his no-holds-barred-style of shooting. After remaining friends, they resumed filming in 2019 following Gomez’s hospitalization for mental health treatment.
“I was very blessed in that she felt like she wanted to do something to help others, but she also thought of me as an artist and trusted my vision and also knew, I think, my heart,” the director said on the carpet. “She didn’t want to become the producer of this thing; she wanted that documentary experience, rather than being a celebrity controlling the documentary. That’s really the reason I agreed to do it.”
And though Gomez’s fans know so much about her through her social media and public platform, Keshishian said the film will give them a look into what her life is actually like. “I think sometimes they go, ‘Why isn’t she singing more, why isn’t she doing more appearances, when is her album coming out?’ And maybe this gives them an insight into what’s happening that they don’t know about,” he said. “I also hope that people who don’t know anything about Selena watch this because I think she’s more than a pop star.”
Inside the premiere, held at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre, the doc was screened before a crowd for the first time, followed by a short Q&A with Gomez (who noted she didn’t watch with the audience because it would be too hard for her) and Keshishian.
Asked about being so honest in the film, the star admitted, “I kind of used myself as a sacrifice in order for people to have the hard conversations,” joking that she was “going to crawl in a hole now for a few months … you won’t see me for a while, I did too much.” She also discussed her new song, titled “My Mind and Me,” which accompanies the film and that she wrote with a team that she gave access to her private journals.
“I feel like it was a perfect example of what I walk through, and it was beautiful, and then we ended up naming the film that,” Gomez said of the song, as Keshishian added, “The second I heard that song I just said, ‘This is the title of the movie.’ I loved it so much that every music cue in the film is a variation of it.”
The director also noted that after pledging to never do another music doc after Madonna’s, “I’m really happy I stuck to my word because I don’t think this is one.” And he called Gomez, “so authentic and vulnerable and unlike most pop stars — most celebrities, in fact, that I know. She doesn’t have armor, she doesn’t have artifice, she doesn’t put on a persona and that amazed me.”
“I hope that people that take away it’s OK to feel not good enough and to feel that you’re complicated and you’re complex. It’s just about having a healthier relationship with how you talk to yourself, how you seek help, how you talk to other people. I hope it starts a chain reaction,” Gomez concluded on the film’s hopeful impact. “I would consider myself the luckiest girl if I could help just one person.”
Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me starts streaming Friday on Apple TV+.
Kirsten Chuba
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