Selene is a character and the main protagonist of the Underworld film franchise, in which Kate Beckinsale portrays her. The character is introduced in the first film, Underworld, as an elite vampire assassin known as a "Death Dealer" who hunts down the Lycans for allegedly murdering her family. She becomes attracted to a human named Michael Corvin, and upon discovering that her sire and adoptive father Viktor was actually responsible for the death of her family, defects from the vampire clan.
Creation Selene was created by Kevin Grevioux, Len Wiseman, and Danny McBride. According to Grevioux, Selene is based on the X-Men villain of the same name, appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Selene was introduced in the first film of the series, Underworld.
Character Selene was born in the late 14th century and grew up as a normal, happy, vibrant child. She and her sister Cecilia loved painting pictures and playing games like 'Silly Goose'. However, at the age of nineteen, the untimely and gruesome deaths of her entire family completely traumatised her and left her an orphan. The deaths of her six-year-old nieces were the most difficult for her to accept. Her family's real murderer, Viktor, tricked her into believing that a pack of Lycans were responsible for the killing. And so, Selene dedicates herself to avenging their deaths.
As a Death Dealer (the Vampires' fighting elite), Selene commits herself to the duty of exterminating the Lycans as a species, a duty she sees as 'sacred', burying herself in her work. She also isolates herself, never socialising with anyone outside of the Death Dealers, as the majority of the Vampire Coven are more concerned whiling away their immortal lives in hedonistic pursuits instead of concerning themselves with the serious business of the war against the Lycans.
She also serves as one of Viktor's most loyal and most powerful Death Dealers, having been vampirically sired by him personally. While she looks up to Viktor as a surrogate father figure (and he sees her as a surrogate daughter), she never stops feeling grief over the loss of her real family.
According to Kate Beckinsale in The Making of Underworld, by the point in time of the events of the first movie, Selene has been a soldier of the Vampire Clan for so long, it has gotten to the point where "[Selene's] almost forgotten she's a woman, she's absolutely focused on revenge and killing, and she's really good at it. Then, she meets Michael, and she starts to get a... kind of memory of what it's like to be human, and to be with humans. She's not completely human, but she is actually 'human' somewhere underneath there."
According to the novelisations of the events of the movies, prior to crossing paths with Michael, Selene had never been in love before. She was not a virgin; neither love nor lust had lured Selene into 'carnal encounters' with other vampires, but rather curiosity and loneliness. Such encounters are few, infrequent, and without consequence, all of them temporary indulgences quickly put behind her.
Personality Selene is headstrong and stubborn, even to a fault, not willing to back down when she knows something is wrong, when she is investigating Lycan activity. This can continue even to the point of endangering herself, such as when she passed out from blood loss at the wheel of her car after Michael warned her against driving in her condition. Selene is described as being "steely-eyed" and having great "emotional independence" from the rest of the Coven, as well as being of "extreme intelligence" and of "sharp intuition". In her Underworld official bio, it is stated that she "trusts almost no one" and that she has a "passion for truth, albeit laced with vengeance", which "traps her in a reluctantly violent and tragic purpose".Underworld page
After centuries of militaristic discipline, having served as a Death Dealer of the vampire clan, Selene had long since developed a near-impervious, stoic external demeanour. Selene is not known for a sense of humour and is actually one of the franchise's most honest vampires. She is also something of an idealist, believing in certain ideals as justice. Although a vampire for six centuries, Selene only really willingly interacted with other Death Dealers and has never fit in with her own kind (most of whom are too absorbed in their own pursuits of self-gratification) unlike them, Selene has never forgotten why she became a vampire and that they are at war with the Lycans, which leads her to consider them layabouts and dead weight, so she cares little for what they all think of her.
In the first instalment, Kraven, who fancies himself as her suitor, complains that she pays far too much attention to hunting and killing Lycans, and that she takes "this warrior business far too seriously". Selene, meanwhile, regards Kraven as "a pig, a coward and an insufferable egotist" who is too wrapped up in himself to even pick up on the fact that, simply, Selene doesn't want anything to do with him, let alone be his arm-trophy at the coven's social events. She dodges his social gatherings, she outright rejects his romantic advances at every turn, in public and in private, and she prefers to dedicate her every waking hour to her calling as a Death Dealer.
For the most part, Selene comes across as "icy" and "unemotional" to those who don't really bother to get close to her, like most of the coven. After years of being a disciplined soldier, Selene is well into the habit of keeping her emotions in check and keeps her cool in the heat of battle and in the face of danger. This same rigorous mentality has made it difficult sometimes to open up to others, especially Michael, early in the story. By her own admission, she's "not good with feelings". In the first novelisation, she is described as being "much more comfortable discussing interrogation techniques" than "divulging the seamier underside of the vampiric lifestyle". In Underworld: Awakening, her own daughter easily misinterprets her behaviour for being "as cold as one already dead", before Selene explains that her heart isn't cold, but it is broken (as Michael is missing at the time) Selene is also in the habit of downplaying any pain or wounds she has received - a habit of hers that Michael has since become familiar with.
Cracks in Selene's emotional armour start to show themselves when she and then-human Michael Corvin meet for the first time at a subway, moments before a shootout, at the beginning of the first film. Other vampires, like Kraven and Erika, quickly catch on to Selene's feelings towards Michael before even she herself does. The two experience a mutual "dynamic attraction" at first sight, and things start to escalate between the two of them, even after she learns that Michael has been bitten by a lycan while she was trying to protect him from them. Because of his innocence, Selene defends Michael from both vampire and lycan, knowing full well Viktor would kill her for doing so.
Selene also becomes noticeably more violent when those she loves suffer or die. When her family was murdered, she went on a revenge spree against the Lycans (whom she had been led to believe were responsible by Viktor) that lasted over six centuries, until the truth was revealed to her. When she learns of Viktor's hand in her family's murder and sees him about to kill Michael, she slices through his head with his own sword, the first shot she gets, without hesitation. Furthermore, when she believes Michael is dead by Markus's hand, she goes on a suicide mission to eliminate Markus and William, before Michael's hybrid abilities revive him; Selene doesn't care if she dies, just as long as she can take Markus and William down with her. When Markus brings up her family, after impaling her with one of his wing talons, saying how it was a "mistake" for Viktor to have "(kept Selene) as a pet. He should have killed you with the rest of your family" (in the novelisation, Markus also calls them "insignificant"); in a fit of rage, Selene snaps the wing talon off at a joint, using it to stab him through the head before pushing him into the spinning rotors of a helicopter. In Underworld: Awakening, when her daughter is taken by the Lycans at the Antigen facility, Selene stages an attack on the building, luring the Lycan security personnel into a trap by taking the elevator up the building and setting silver gas explosives at every floor to get back her daughter.
Biography
Backstory As revealed in the first & second films, Selene is born to a Hungarian family; her father, mother, her older sister Cecilia, and her baby twin nieces. Selene is estimated to have been born around the year 1383.
At some point, Selene's father is approached by a powerful warlord named Viktor with a commission to design and build a prison. According to the novelisations, Selene's father is well known as both a stone mason and a blacksmith, and the commission involves the excavation of a new dungeon and prison under a fortress of Viktor's, as well as striking two unique keys for one cell in particular. Selene is around 6–7 years old when work on the prison is completed.
Seven years later, at around age 13 to 14, Selene becomes an aunt to her older sister's twin daughters.
During the winter of Lucian's escape, about 6-years-later, Viktor fears that Lucian may know of William, the progenitor of all werewolves, (given that Lucian, whether he knew it or not, was now holding one of the keys to William's prison): To Keep the Location of William's prison a secret, Viktor kills everyone involved in the construction of the prison and anyone who may have visited or seen the fortress. One night, Viktor prowls into the farm of Selene's family, kills, and feeds upon them one by one. When he comes across Selene, however, he finds that he 'could not bear the thought of draining [her] dry' (as described by Kraven) '[Selene], who reminded him so much of his precious Sonja'.
That night, Viktor turns Selene into a vampire. She is 19 years old when she is turned. He leads her to believe that the culprits of the murder of her family are Lycans and that Viktor saved her from them. He claims he'd been tracking The Lycans when they led him to her family's farm. With the strength of a vampire, Viktor tells Selene, she can avenge them all. Selene is the only survivor to have walked through the corridors of the fortress. Viktor does not kill her because she resembles his deceased daughter, and he believes that she is much too young to remember where exactly the fortress's location is.
Selene goes on to become a Death Dealer, fighting against the Lycans for vengeance. For the centuries that follow (the better part of a thousand years), she serves under Viktor with blind loyalty, remaining in the dark about her family's murder by none other than Viktor himself.
On Viktor's orders, Selene exiles Andreas Tanis, the Coven's official historian. At some point, she also becomes the unwilling object of the romantic interests of Kraven, the Coven's regent.
Underworld After a confrontation with the Lycan hitman Raze, she discovers what is supposedly a Lycan lair. She is angry when Kraven dismisses her claims, not knowing that Kraven is in league with the Lycan leader Lucian in a bid to take over the control of the vampire realm from the Elders.
She tracks down Michael Corvin, in whom she believes the Lycans have an interest. Against the sacred laws of The Vampire Covenant, she and Michael, who is infected with the lycanthropy virus, fall in love.
She awakens Viktor from his deep slumber (torpor), believing that only he has the power to deal with the conspiracy between Kraven and Lucian. She then leads a mass assault on the Lycans' underground bunker.