Selena Gomez

Birth Date: 22/07/1992

Grand Prairie, Texas native Selena Marie Gomez - born July 22, 1992 - started her screen career on Barney & Friends before rising to Disney Channel fame on Wizards of Waverly Place. An actress, singer, and producer, she built a dual career in live-action and animation. Best known for voicing Mavis Dracula across all four Hotel Transylvania films, Helga in Horton Hears a Who!, and Betsy in Dolittle, her work spans more than 14 years of animation.

Selena Gomez’s Voice Acting Career: From Horton to Hotel Transylvania

Long before Mavis Dracula became one of Sony Animation’s most beloved characters, Selena Gomez was already carving out space in the world of animated film. Her first voice role came in 2008 with the Dr. Seuss adaptation Horton Hears a Who!, where she voiced Helga, the mayor’s daughter in Whoville. It was a relatively small part, but it marked the beginning of a parallel career in animation that would eventually span over a decade.

The role that defined her voice acting identity arrived in 2012. Cast as Mavis – Count Dracula’s sheltered, warm-hearted vampire daughter – in Sony’s Hotel Transylvania, Gomez brought an unexpectedly human quality to the character. The casting itself had an interesting road: Miley Cyrus was originally attached to the role before departing the project, and Gomez stepped in to create what became one of the most recognizable animated voices of the 2010s. Across four theatrical films – Hotel Transylvania (2012), Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015), Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018), and Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022) – she reprised Mavis consistently, watching the character evolve from teenager to wife to mother. The third film alone grossed over $528 million worldwide.

Beyond the Hotel Transylvania franchise, Gomez voiced Princess Selenia in the animated Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard (2009), a French production based on Luc Besson’s Arthur series. In 2020, she joined the star-studded voice cast of Dolittle, playing Betsy, an eager young giraffe alongside Tom Holland, Emma Thompson, and Rami Malek. The casting came at the direct request of director Stephen Gaghan’s daughter – a detail Gomez herself shared on social media at the film’s premiere.

What makes her voice work notable is its consistency with her screen presence. Mavis carries the same kind of earnest energy that Gomez brought to her live-action roles – curious, emotionally open, occasionally impulsive. The character grew alongside her in a way that few animated roles do across a decade-long run. She also served as an executive producer on the Hotel Transylvania films, giving her creative investment in the franchise beyond the recording booth.

Starting with a Disney Channel career on Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2012) and a childhood appearance on Barney & Friends, Gomez built her animation work alongside a music career that produced three Billboard 200 number-one albums. Her voice acting output sits within a broader body of work that also includes Emmy-nominated performances in Only Murders in the Building and her Golden Globe-nominated role in Emilia Perez.