nava spent one month with the quintanilla family. he wrote down everything that the family said about selena. by the fifth week, nava had written the movie and showed abraham the draft. abraham was not happy — he did not want selena's fans to think that eloping was a right thing to do. he also did not like the conflict between his character and chris perez. nava responded that the information was "life events". he also said that even though he may seem like a "bad guy" in the movie, his actions after the marriage would make people see him differently. abraham agreed and allowed the two stories in the movie. salma hayek was originally asked to play the role of selena in the movie, but she turned it down. she felt that it was "too early" to base a movie on selena and that it would be too emotional since selena's death was still being covered on television.