Candid, collected and confident. That was the Selena Gomez this writer met in Cancun, Mexico, when she sat down with TODAY earlier this year to talk about her reprisal of Mavis — Dracula’s sassy daughter in Hotel Transylvania 2, the sequel to Sony Pictures Animation’s US$358 million (S$505 million) box-office hit.

After a rough 2014 filled with the pressures of Hollywood, rehab and the interminable ex-boyfriend troubles, we are liking this revived Selena. Perhaps epitomising her sophomore solo album Revival (which is out next month), or like her character Mavis, who is now the mother of a half-human, half-vampire baby boy in this second instalment, Gomez has done quite a bit of growing up in the past two years.

The 23-year-old even confessed to the kind of mother she would like to be. “Honestly, I hope to be similar to my mum,” she revealed. “She was very creative and was always very vocal with me. She always tries to guide me in the right direction and I always admired that.”

Of course, the former Disney star, who got into show business at the age of seven and had to grow up in the spotlight, knows exactly how important such support is. After all, you do not become a mega successful child-idol-turned-teenage-pop-sensation-turned-movie-starlet before you are even 21 without some kind of guidance in making the right calls.

And in these social media-era days, that right direction seems to point towards authenticity. Gomez, who has 33.1 million followers on Twitter and 44.5 million on Instagram, is well known to be one of the most accessible and involved celebrities online, especially to her devoted “Selenators”, bravely sharing her personal life and baring her soul both on social media and in her music.

So is it a fine and difficult line to walk in these stalker-razzi times?

“For sure. I think there comes a point when sometimes it becomes so overbearing,” she shared. “People, with the power of the Internet, have so much access to say whatever they want about my life and sometimes I can’t just sit there and not say anything.

“Most of the time, I don’t pay attention and I just let it go. But when it starts defining my character, I don’t want people to look at me any differently because I know how hard I work,” she revealed.

“And if I become anything other than who I am, you’d know about it. US Weekly or anybody else is not going to tell you!” she continued with a laugh.

And she is not about to let any type of trolling stop her from using social media as a tool to reach her fans.

“Yes, it is such a scary thing but it’s also such a powerful tool. I like having a voice because I know that they are going to listen to my voice more than they are going to listen to somebody who is making up a lie,” she explained, adding that while she may be part of a generation of savvy social media users, “it’s part of who I am too”.

She also revealed that even though David Spade’s character The Invisible Man is her favourite ghoul from the Hotel Transylvania franchise (“Just because I love David, and I think the idea of seeing him on screen is hilarious because I never know when he’s coming. It’s actually adorable!”) it certainly does not reflect how she wants to live her life.

“I don’t think I ever want to be an invisible person,” she said. “Yes, I think sometimes I want to be under the radar. But, hey, this (the fame) is part of my life.”

Hotel Transylvania 2 opens in cinemas here on Sept 24.