Will ‘Wizards’ star be the next Miley?
By John Rogers
Selena Gomez is flattered and a little embarrassed by the comparison.
LOS ANGELES — She’s a wizard, but 15-year-old Selena Gomez knows that just waving her wand isn’t going to turn her into the next Miley Cyrus.
Since word got out that the breakout star of the Disney Channel TV show “Wizards of Waverly Place” is planning on recording an album later this year, the “Future Miley” predictions have started to fly.
“I think it’s an honor, it’s a good compliment,” says Gomez, looking somewhat embarrassed by the comparison.
“But I think I might want to take a different route when it comes to that,” she continues, smiling shyly. “I love acting and that’s my passion. So I would love to do more movies and some serious things like that. So maybe a different road with me.” Plus, she says, she plans on being part of a band later this year, not a solo singer.
But in the meantime, the teen star says she’s having the time of her life sliding through pools of chocolate, riding on magic carpets, swinging from chandeliers and getting into every other outrageous predicament that her character, teenage tomboy wizard Alex Russo, can manage.
“Selena asks how we come up with this stuff, who would do these things. And I tell her, ‘If I were a 15-year-old girl, I would.’ I was always the class clown,” says the show’s executive producer, Peter Murrieta.
As for Gomez, her parents keep a fairly tight rein on her, she says, leaving little room to act like Alex when she is dividing her time between homes in Los Angeles and her native Texas.
“I’m nothing like her,” the alternately self-assured actress and giggly teen says, laughing. “She’s kind of mean and a little bit sassy and I think I’d get in trouble for that.”
In the show, which airs Sundays at 8:30 p.m. EDT, she’s the middle child, sandwiched between two brothers — 13-year-old Jake T. Austin’s mischievous Max and 18-year-old David Henrie’s serious, ofttimes put-upon Justin.
All are wizards, having inherited their magical powers from their father (David DeLuise), who had to give up his when he married a mortal, played by Maria Canals-Barrera.
An only child, Gomez says Henrie and Austin “have become like my real brothers.”
“By that I mean we fight and argue, too,” she says, sitting at a table in what the show’s viewers would instantly recognize as the Russos’ family kitchen. “We do the whole, like, picking on each other brotherly-sister thing.”
As if to prove it, Austin has Gomez momentarily frightened — and then cracking up — as he pretends to lose control of a motorbike the three are about to ride through a magic scene in which a giant teddy bear has come to life.
“There’s no competitiveness between us. We all love each other. We all hang out together,” says Henrie.
“Selena, David and Jake, they’re all going to be doing other things,” predicts DeLuise, the veteran character actor and son of Dom DeLuise.
Heading into its second season, “Wizards of Waverly Place” often fights a seesaw ratings battle with Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana” and Nickelodeon’s “iCarly” for most popular show among the tween demographic.
That has led to more Miley-Selena comparisons, although a third actress, Demi Lovato, is also being talked up lately as the next Miley after having starred in the Disney movie “Camp Rock,” which premieres Friday.