The former In Living Color Fly Girl beat out thousands of other young hopefuls when she was cast as slain Latinx singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in the 1997 biopic, Selena, which premiered in theaters a quarter-century ago on March 21, 1997.
"I remember Marcella gasping and saying, 'Oh, she dances just like Selena,'" Nava recalls. "And we went, 'She's the one. She is the one.' She has the talent, the ganas [desire] and the passion to really channel the spirit of that beautiful young woman."