Selena Gomez to star in Linda Ronstadt biopic

Pop singer and actor Selena Gomez is to portray the massively successful US singer Linda Ronstadt in a new biopic.

Currently in pre-production, the film is being produced by James Keach, who has worked on a number of music-related film projects including producing Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line and documentaries on Ronstadt, David Crosby and Glen Campbell. Also producing will be John Boylan, Ronstadt’s manager.

A note on Boylan’s website says Gomez and Ronstadt, who both have Mexican heritage, “recently spent a few hours at Linda’s home discussing the project and getting to know each other”.

Related: Linda Ronstadt: ‘I don’t like any of my albums’

The film will dramatise an arguably overdue pop cultural story: by ably traversing folk, rock and country, Ronstadt became one of the biggest music stars in the US during the 1970s and 80s, and a rare woman in a male-dominated rock scene. She had six back-to-back platinum albums including Simple Dreams and Heart Like a Wheel, with the single You’re No Good also topping the US chart. But she had to work hard to assert her place in an often sexist music industry, and spoke candidly of the alienation she experienced: “They haven’t invented a word for that loneliness that everybody goes through on the road,” she said.

Gomez is currently working on a fourth studio album, following 2020’s Rare which like its predecessors topped the US album chart. As well as her continuing role in sitcom Only Murders in the Building, she will next be seen in musical comedy drama Emilia Perez, from Jacques Audiard, the French director of A Prophet, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and Rust and Bone.