Selena Gomez and her Wizards of Waverly Place family are giving fans one last look at the behind-the-scenes magic of their franchise, with the singer-actress sharing her thoughts about saying goodbye to Alex Russo in honor of spin-off Wizards Beyond Waverly Place‘s four-part finale that dropped Tuesday (Aug. 4).
In an online Entertainment Tonight special posted the same day that the series conclusion premiered on Disney+, Gomez looks back on how far she’s come since she first made her debut as Alex on the original Disney Channel series in 2007. After running for four seasons, Wizards of Waverly Place wrapped in 2012 — more than a decade after which the Rare Beauty founder and costar David Henrie teamed up to resurrect the show for a reboot.
“This is it. This is the end,” Gomez said between previews of scenes from the Wizards Beyond Waverly Place finale and behind-the-scenes footage of the cast hugging and laughing on set. “It’s really surreal to say that I’m done playing this character.”
“My hope is that people fall in love with family shows again, and that they hold this to a standard of appreciating what it means to just have a show that the whole family can get together, watch, hopefully laugh,” she continued. “I’m going to really miss that.”
In addition to reprising her role as Alex, the Only Murders in the Building star made her directorial debut on the third and final installment of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. The emotional conclusion brings back one of the original show’s most beloved characters: Harper Finkle, played by Jennifer Stone, who returned for the finale after being absent from the spin-off’s first two seasons.
“Filming with Selena, I was a mess,” Stone told ET. “It felt like saying goodbye to, in a weird way, your teenage self.”
After rising to superstardom in the 2010s on the original Wizards of Waverly Place, Gomez forged a successful career as a pop star. She’s notched 46 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 — including No. 1 smash “Lose You to Love Me” in 2019 — and most recently dropped music at the end of July, new single single “Te Olvido (La La),” which is a collaboration with husband Benny Blanco and Becky G.
Watch ET‘s look at the Wizards Beyond Waverly Place finale above.
