Selena Gomez Cries Amid 9-Minute Standing Ovation at Cannes Film Festival

Selena Gomez was emotional when her latest movie received a nine-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 18.

The actress, 31, who stars in Emilia Pérez, was seen wiping tears as the audience at France’s Grand Lumiére Theatre at the Palais gave their longest round of applause so far this year, Variety reports. Zoe Saldaña and Karla Sofía Gascón also cried during the positive response with Gomez comforting Gascón, who was overcome with emotion. The audience even kept cheering for a minute after director Jacques Audiard took the mic to say a few words in French.

Gomez plays Jessi, a drug lord’s wife and mother of two, in the musical crime drama, and she sings a handful of songs for the Emilia Pérez soundtrack and speaks Spanish in the film, per The Hollywood Reporter. However, it’s Gascón who takes the spotlight as the gangster who needs the help of a lawyer to get gender confirmation surgery.

Per the official Cannes synopsis: “Overqualified and undervalued, Rita is a lawyer at a large firm that is more interested in getting criminals off the hook than bringing them to justice. One day, she is given an unexpected way out, when cartel leader Manitas hires her to help him withdraw from his business and realize a plan he has been secretly preparing for years: to become the woman he has always dreamt of being.”

Prior to wowing audiences with her film, Gomez was impressing fashionistas with her red carpet looks while in France for the festival.

For the Emilia Pérez red carpet on Saturday, Gomez wore a black Saint Laurent gown with a white off-the-shoulder neckline and black platform Santoni heels. She topped off the look with Bulgari jewelry, including an impressive diamond choker, several rings and earrings.

One day prior, Gomez was spotted looking chic but casual in a white knitted minidress by Self-Portrait with black and white Roger Vivier pumps. That night, she donned a custom navy Oscar de la Renta gown with black embellishments across the neckline, and the mid-calf hemline showed off her black Santoni pumps.

Gomez noted that she’s excited about taking on other challenging acting endeavors, saying, “I love being able to take roles that I have to fight for, not the ones that are being handed to me. I’m going for the stuff that really, really inspires me.”

Her Cannes appearance comes after Gomez declared in March that she was focused on acting projects more than her music career right now.

“I think it’s natural for people to take breaks, but I think for me, there is a whole other aspect to my life, pride and joy,” she told Rolling Stone at the time. “I love film. I love TV. I just feel like I haven’t done a lot of the things that I want to do in that space. It’s not that it’s ‘no, never’ [to music], it’s more that I would like to explore that world a bit more and have the time to actually do that.”

The Only Murders in the Building star added, “I love being able to take roles that I have to fight for, not the ones that are being handed to me,” she says. “I’m going for the stuff that really, really inspires me.”

In addition to Emilia Pérez, Gomez is set to star in the new Linda Ronstadt biopic and produce the upcoming Wizards of Waverly Place reboot.