It’s hard to believe Spring Breakers is more than a decade old.
The provocative crime comedy starred Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens and Rachel Korine as a gang of college best friends who head to Florida for spring break. Tight on cash, the four decide to hold up a restaurant and are arrested and taken to jail, where a drug dealer named Alien (James Franco) bails them out and takes them under his wing.
The 2013 film became something of a cult classic and marked a moment of transition for Disney darlings Gomez and Hudgens. Over the years, the stars of the cast have spoken out about what it was like to make the buzzy film.
Gomez looked back on the movie in a sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter in late 2024 as she promoted Emilia Pérez, recalling she wanted “to do a cool project” after her time on Disney on Wizards of Waverly Place.
“We had done over 100 episodes of Wizards and two movies for Wizards, and then I did a few lovely, cute projects in between that I’m grateful for, and then I met with [director Harmony Korine]. I love interesting filmmakers, and he was so colorful and he had so many different ways of auditioning me. It was more like, ‘Who are you and what is that like?’ ” she recalled.
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“And my mom was with me the whole time. I know I was 18, but I was still so young, and he had his wife and kid there, too.”
Gomez recalled a moment where she was talking about the film with Hudgens, in light of their respective Disney Channel pasts.
“I remember I thought I was so mature. I’m sure I sounded like I was 12,” Gomez said with a laugh.
“I was like, ‘Well, technically the movie is rated R, so [my young fans] are not allowed to see it, so they won’t see it.’ And Vanessa’s like, ‘Ohh-kay…’ I was so naive.”
While all these years later, the film has a mixed legacy, Gomez told Variety it’s “a project I’m proud of despite its uniqueness.”
Though Ashley Benson’s reputation wasn’t as squeaky clean as part of the already dramatic and devious hit Pretty Little Liars’ cast, she, too, found the unusual film “liberating.”
“I kept reminding my agent, ‘I only want to do something that’s different and will help put me in a new category.’ People see me as playing Hanna on Pretty Little Liars or being the stereotypical popular blonde girl,” she told Glamour as she celebrated the film’s release.
“Scripts like this do not come around often. I mean, Harmony is so different than any other director,” she continued. “The script was edgy, it was fun, it was scary. I was like, ‘Yes! I have to get this part.’ And when I got it, I was so excited.”
Benson said that promoting the film in Europe, where it debuted at the Venice Film Festival six months before its U.S. release, was a busy but fun experience for the cast to enjoy together.
“Throughout Europe, we flew private, so that was our time to have fun. All we would do is play Britney Spears and run up and down the hallway,” she shared.
“It was the most fun thing I’ve ever done. I’ve known Vanessa for a really long time, and Selena and I got super close before we started to film. Now, all four of us, we’re like sisters. We hate being apart.”
Stream Spring Breakers on Apple TV and Hulu.
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