Selena Gomez is moving on from playing Alex Russo after 'Wizards Beyond Waverly Place' finale
Selena Gomez is closing the book on playing her iconic role as Alex Russo after the finale of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.
The sequel series to the 2007 sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place premiered its four-part finale on Aug. 4. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Gomez revealed that she doesn't see herself returning to the role after the series wrapped.
"This is it. This is the end of Wizards of Waverly Place, the end of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. And it’s really surreal to say that I’m done playing this character," she said.
"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. I’m going to really miss that," she added.
Spoiler alert: the finale saw Alex jumping into a portal to defeat the dark wizard Lord Morsus, leading many fans to interpret the ending as the character sacrificing her life.
However, Gomez's co-star David Henrie, who plays her older brother Justin, clarified that Alex isn't dead and that there's "a lot more to come."
"This is what I love about X. One person watches the end, probably skips right to the end, takes a video or a picture of the end, and puts it online and is like, ‘Alex is dead.’ Then, suddenly, it’s trending, and everyone’s like, ‘How could they kill her?’" he said in an interview with PEOPLE.
He added that they never thought about "killing" the character.
"If you actually watch it, she gets sucked into a void, and that’s it. Doesn’t mean she’s dead. She didn’t get incinerated or mauled on camera. She got sucked into a place," he explained. "In this season, you’ll learn about it."
Much like Gomez, Henrie also got sentimental as he reflected on saying goodbye to his character.
"My hope with this show from day one was that the original fans and new fans would feel like we’re giving them a big hug, like we were helping them escape the crazy world that we live in and enter into a show that has values that make them feel warm and loved and laugh," he highlighted.
"I hope that we finish in the fashion in which we began the show in the very first place, where Russos always have each other’s back," he added.
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place is set 15 years after the events of its predecessor. It follows Justin Russo, who has left his wizard life behind to raise his family until a powerful young wizard, Billie, enters his life and pulls him back into the magical world.
It has three seasons in total spanning 35 episodes.