Unlike Her ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Character, Selena Gomez Says She’s ‘Terrible’ at Solving Crimes

Sometimes, an actor in a show or a film will have skills similar to their character. Tom Cruise is well known for doing his own stunts, Keanu Reeves regularly practices martial arts, and Margot Robbie is an adept gymnast and even learned some pretty advanced figure skating. However, most of the time, an actor showing off specialized skills is simply acting. Selena Gomez found this out for herself recently: though she’s currently acting on a crime series and learning about crime for the role, when faced with a real crime to solve, she learned that it’s a lot harder than it looks! How did Gomez come to try her hand at detective work? And in what ways is she like her character?

Selena Gomez has a major role on ‘Only Murders in the Building’

Selena Gomez has had some pretty notable roles over the year, and as of 2021 she’s acting in a new comedy on Hulu: Only Murders in the Building. The show is a crime comedy, centered around fans of a true crime podcast who find themselves having to get involved with a case in their own lives. Though as of September 2021 only half of the episodes have been released, it’s already received a lot of praise for being both a funny parody of true crime media and an intriguing mystery.

In the show, Gomez plays Mabel Mora, who’s renovating an apartment in the building for her aunt. Mabel, as it turns out, also has history with the murder victim, and in fact has been close to a murder case before this one. We still don’t know the exact details of Mabel’s backstory or what’s going to happen to her, but she’s an intriguing character than many fans want to learn more about.

Gomez tried to solve a mystery of her own

In an interview with Seth Myers, Gomez revealed that she went to an event entitled CrimeCon with her mom, which involved being given an open case and getting to help solve it collaboratively with the real authorities. However, when asked which of the two was better, Gomez or her mother, Gomez very quickly said her mother was better at it, and that she herself was “terrible,” saying that if fans had a case, “don’t come to me.” Additionally, the case is typically not solved at the end of the convention — though the extra people power helps, open cases are always difficult to close.

That being said, Gomez still enjoyed it. She said she had a lot of fun, and that other attendees of the convention either didn’t recognize her or didn’t care much about her celebrity status — and “it was great.”

Gomez still does feel like she and Mabel are very similar

Even if Selena Gomez doesn’t think she’d be able to solve a crime, she still relates very strongly to her character on the show. This especially plays out in her relationship to her costars, Steve Martin and Martin Short. The two costars are quite a bit older than Gomez, so Gomez often finds herself explaining pop culture and technology to them (such as Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s summer classic WAP). Similarly, Mabel has to show her neighbors in the building how to use newer technology in the process of solving the crime. Additionally, fans have noticed similarities between Mabel and another character played by Gomez: Alex Russo on Wizards of Waverly Place. Gomez has had many roles over the years, but it seems like Mabel will soon become one of her signature roles!