Alex Russo

Alexandra Margarita Russo
'Wizards of Waverly Place' character
First appearance	"Crazy 10-Minutes Sale"
Created by	Todd J. Greenwald
Portrayed by	Selena Gomez
In-universe information
Nickname	Alex (by Everyone) Lexie (by her maternal grandmother) Brown eyes (by Mason) Little Meatball (by Mason)
Gender	Female
Occupation	Waitress (at the Waverly Sub Station) 9th grader (season 1) 10th grader (season 2) 11th grader (season 3) 12th grader (season 4)
Family	Jerry Russo (father), Theresa Russo (mother), Justin Russo (older brother), Max Russo (younger brother), Megan Brooke Russo (paternal aunt), Kelbo Russo (paternal uncle), Magdelena Larkin (maternal grandmother) Ernesto Larkin (maternal uncle), Duke Russo (paternal grandfather), Rose Russo (paternal grandmother)

Alexandra Margarita "Alex" Russo is the main protagonist of the Disney Channel sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place, portrayed by Selena Gomez. As the middle child and only Russo daughter, she is sly, outgoing, and sometimes rude to her family and friends. Alex usually underachieves when it comes to regular high school. She is good at heart though. She often gets into trouble because of her constant schemes (usually involving magic).

Alex is smart but not hardworking. Her brother Justin hates this because he himself is a hard worker and he can't bear the feeling that even though his sister doesn't work hard, she gets everything. Alex became a full wizard in "Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie".

In 2008, AOL named her the twentieth greatest witch in television history. Selena Gomez, who portrays Alex, is one of the only two cast members to appear in every single episode of the series to date; the only other cast member to appear in all episodes that have aired so far is David Henrie, who portrays Justin Russo.

Personality

Her mother describes her as "A beautiful girl who is full of mischief" in the episode "Alex's Brother Maximan". Fights towards Justin are frequent, because she secretly wants to be like him but doesn't know what to do about it. In the season three episode "Alex's Logo", while she is under a truth spell, it is revealed that the reason that Alex acts mean is simply because she wants to be liked and actually fears being hated. She also is seen many times eating sliced pickles, suggesting that maybe they're her other favorite food besides biscuits and loose corn. But in the end she makes everything work out.

Alex claims everyone takes her advice as she knows a lot about fashion, relationships, girls, and guys, but above all she can be very sneaky and tricky to the extent that she's even willing to admit that she's usually up to no good, and feels uncomfortable when others say the opposite. Her best friend since childhood is Harper Finkle (Jennifer Stone), who often tries to keep her out of trouble. In the episode "Third Wheel", Alex says to Harper that she is like her sister. Her temporary best friend at Wizard School is Hugh Normous (Josh Sussman), as she said in one episode, that he was "the worst best friend ever". Though she continues to torment her older brother Justin, the two seem to have a close bond that neither seem to have with any other character on the show. Her enemy since kindergarten is Gigi Hollingsworth (Skyler Samuels), ever since Gigi spilled juice on Alex's blanket and told everybody that Alex had an "accident" during nap time in their kindergarten years which but Alex still hasn't got over it.

Alex often uses magic to solve her problems, which frequently ends up giving her even more problems than she began with. Her tendency to use magic without permission is often caused by her lack of work-ethic and respect for the rules she deems unnecessary. Alex hardly ever considers the consequences of magic and is often unprepared when the situation goes haywire, which requires the help of her more sensible brother Justin when she finds she can't fix them by herself, often grudgingly accepting his offer to work together. Alex has not advanced as far as Justin (or even Max, as shown in "Night at the Lazerama"), but she is very skilled at "Make-'em-Ups", when a wizard can make up their own emergency spell. It is revealed in "Doll House" that Alex didn't know about magic when she was five.

Riley (Brian Kubach) had been Alex's crush for most of the first season, and to impress him, she calls herself his good luck charm and manipulates Justin without him figuring out to magically win his — and Riley's, as she was always quick to emphasize — baseball game, though when Justin stops once their father makes him realize what Alex has been doing, Alex has to use magic herself by the bleachers in order to be Riley's date, cleverly managing to win the game for Riley even with Jerry and Justin's attempts to foil her magic, further showing how skilled she can be at magic by the way she countered Justin's magic so easily and discreetly at the baseball game where humans who didn't know about magic were, despite Justin's and Jerry's knowledge of magic, when it clashes with her understanding of it — however small her amount of understanding of it may be at the start. She had also got Riley jealous by enchanting a mannequin to come alive and date her—after he breaks up with her—in the episode "Alex's Spring Fling".

She is a Daddy's Girl and according to her father, Jerry (David DeLuise), she uses her puppy dog eyes to get out of trouble. She can't tell when her dad's being overprotective, she just thinks he's being crazy and doesn't make the situation better by saying she's growing up. In "You Can't Always Get What You Carpet", however, she tells her dad she will always be his little girl. She isn't fazed very much — if not at all — when he's overprotective and still does whatever it is he doesn't want her to do. For example in "Alex's Brother Maximan", Jerry hears Alex tell her mom that her boyfriend, Dean (Daniel Samonas), wants to kiss her, and he says "Kissing? Who are you kissing?" and begins to freak out. Later in the episode, she does kiss Dean, but when her dad questions it, she tries to change the subject by saying something about him being proud of his children.

Alex is often depicted as a slacker, somewhat more so with regular high school than in wizardry and witchcraft school. If Alex does not want to do anything that is school-related, she will make an excuse or scheme about why she does not want to do it, and how unnecessary she finds it or will just simply not do it. She will often rebel against mandatory assignments with glee and has displayed little, if any, ambition, freely admitting that she always arrives in school during third period and never cares. She has been shown to be sent to the principal's office so often that she and Mr. Laritate have a regular routine down, even pouring each other coffee and giving each other donuts, and even has a pillow, a hammock, and a CD player containing rain forest sounds stashed in Mr. Laritate's office whenever she gets detention. She has even resorted to trying extreme measures in order to get out of a school project despite the cost being much greater, once going as far as attempting to injure herself on purpose by jumping off the stage after she is named as Harper's replacement as Tinker Bell in the school production of Peter Pan (this after she already auditioned to be Harper's understudy, thinking that she would not have to do anything in the play), when Harper accidentally falls off the stage during rehearsal. Art is her favorite school subject and is pretty much the only class she takes seriously, and excels greatly at, being the best in her class and even being the co-art teacher.

After her parents complain how she never has never been in any school clubs, she lied and said she was in reading club and tried to steal the award from Justin's room and scratch out his name and put hers. Justin, however, is fed up with her always getting past his defenses to keep her out of his room and stealing his stuff, so he created Frankie (Franken Girl) to guard his room, but Alex still managed to shut down Frankie when she figures out that Frankie's brain worked like a computer, and when Justin made Frankie immune to shutting down like a computer and cast a spell to make her think of Alex as her best friend — much to Alex's disdain — and Alex was then forced to put up with her before noticing that Frankie fit a lot of her best friend requirements, and became fast friends with Frankie. Justin then put a spell on Frankie to like cheerleading and she wanted Alex to be on the squad with her. In "Monster Hunter", Alex gets jealous of Justin when he moves forward in wizard training so she creates a spell song where she can remember the spells she learn, hoping to catch up with him.

Alex and Justin act as foils, as the two are near-polar opposites in terms of personality; Justin is responsible, kind, unselfish, sensible, and hard working, fair in judgment, though not very witty with his words nor outgoing, mostly like that just because he secretly competes to be the best at magic since he loves it but is easily insecure at witnessing Alex and her great magical feats accomplished so effortlessly by her. Alex is lazy, carefree, witty, funny, sarcastic, stubborn, and biased when it comes to herself or her loved ones against other people, magical or not, not very good at expressing herself in terms of emotions and frustration-causing desires on her part like wanting to be like Justin, cunning, mischievous, and a complete natural at magic despite not being as serious as Justin when discussed or performed, his performance full of constant measuring and intense concentration, while hers laid-back and careless. Their similarities though, are surprisingly many, despite how rarely they show themselves, as they are very strong during the moments they do shine through.

Positive qualities

Despite her frequent unkindness and pranks, Alex is far from heartless and has numerous instances of generosity, loyalty, and compassion. She deeply cares for Harper, going so far as to reveal her secret to her in "Harper Knows" out of guilt for lying. She also loves Justin dearly despite their constant antagonism, most notably shown in "Moving On", where she went out of her way to help Justin move on from Juliet. Alex can also feel remorse and guilt for her actions and has apologized and taken responsibility for them, and often goes out of her way to set things right whenever her disregard for the consequences directly affect her friends and/or family. Though these instances are rare, Alex does occasionally use magic unselfishly or with good intentions, such as in "Taxi Dance", where she repairs Cab 804 to allow herself and her family to continue to cherish the memories of her birth. Additionally, in "The Good, the Bad, and the Alex", she apparently joins forces with Stevie, a fellow wizard, and starts a revolution to end the wizard competition, but this is revealed to be a ruse; just as Stevie is about to succeed, Alex transforms her into a rock-like substance and shatters her. Alex is also very much like her aunt Megan, as both love art and hate hard work. In fact, Max said that Megan is just like Alex's twin only older in "Retest", though the key difference between the two, according to Justin, is that Alex is capable of apologizing for her actions, something that Megan never learned to do. She also has a strong sense of justice, and frequently scolds anyone who is being unfair or cruel, going far to the point of stand against her own parents in the first part of "Wizard vs Vampire" when they berates Justin for dating Juliet. Alex also hates "fake" people; in "Alex Does Good", when she is forced to join the Happy Helper's Club, Alex is openly disgusted that the club members only do mundane everyday tasks for people rather than actual good deeds, and are only doing so for rewards. She even goes so far as to refuse to accept a ribbon to protest their behavior, but immediately accepts it when she discovers that she faces suspension. In Season 3, Alex is rarely the source of magical problems anymore, instead often being the one to solve them, though she still has a bad reputation and is always the first to blame when magic causes a situation to go haywire.

In Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, Alex says that Justin was everything that she ever wanted to be and she was jealous of how smart he was and how kind he is, while Justin responds in kind saying how he is jealous of how everything comes easy to her, especially magic, which is why he strives so hard to be perfect.

In Alex tells the World, Alex, along with Justin, are found guility for exposing magic to the human world. Professer Crumbs revealed that the "government" was actually a Wizard Test, and they failed. Since Alex told the "world" and Justin told the "government" about the wizards, their punishment is a drop from Level 3 to Level 1 for Wizards Studies, putting Max in the lead. Alex subsequently decided to quite the wizard competition believing that there was no way that she could win and focus on her relationship with Mason, her boyfriend. Unfortunately, it's turned out that, since she is now mortal, their relationship is against the wizard law, due to the fact that werewolves always devour their (mortal) girlfriends, and they have no choice but to break up. But in journey to the center of mason they get back again. Alex decides to not give up the competetion and is now more determined than ever to win so her and Mason won't have to break up.

Alex's love interests

• Brad Sherwood (Shane Lyons, season 1) – seen in "Potion Commotion"; Alex tries to get Brad to like her with a love potion, but she accidentally drinks both halves of the potion and falls in love with herself. Later, Brad came over to her house and gave her chocolates, on the same night of Justin's interview for the World School Summit. She soon found out that Brad only came over just to sabotage Justin's interview. Alex then broke up with him, even though they were never going out.
• Riley (Brian Kubach, season 1) – long term; first seen in "I Almost Drowned in a Chocolate Fountain", where he and Alex went on a so-called 'date'. In "The Supernatural", Alex got Riley to believe that she was his good luck charm in baseball, and charmed the ball so his team would win each time. They broke up in "Alex's Spring Fling" (List of WOWP episodes), but Alex made Riley jealous by dating mannequin she brought to life, and they got back together. Apparently they broke-up, because Riley was never to be been seen again in season 2. And Alex dates Dean Moriarty in season 2.
• Manny Quin (Matt Smith, season 1) – A male mannequin that Alex used magic on to come to life, and briefly dated to make Riley jealous in "Alex's Spring Fling".
• Dean Moriarty (Daniel Samonas, season 2) – long term; first seen in "Smarty Pants", last seen in "Wizards vs. Vampires: Dream Date". Dean discovered Alex liked him in "Graphic Novel", and admitted he liked her in "Racing". They started dating in "Alex's Brother, Maxximan". Dean apparently moved away to Ohio (though has not been mentioned since "Saving WizTech") and he came back in "Wizards vs. Vampires: Dream Date" (because Alex was using magic to control his dreams to go on dates with him). They broke up because Dean wasn't acting as romantic as he was in his dreams Alex was controlling. When she broke up, at first he acted all cool, but when Alex went into yet another dream, but let Dean control it this time, he says the reason he acted that way was because he was hurt. They break up properly and Dean disappears in his dream. Dean returns in the episode, "Journey To The Center Of Mason" to try to get back together with Alex..
• Ronald Longcape, Jr. (Chad Duell, season 2) – seen in "Saving WizTech". Alex liked Ronald when they met, but she was still in a relationship with Dean. Ronald then shape-shifted into Dean (he froze the real Dean inside gelatin) and broke up with Alex so he could convince Alex into coming to WizTech with him. Ronald used her as part of his evil plan to take over WizTech, but his plan was foiled by Alex's love for Dean.
• Javier (Xavier Torres) - seen in Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie. He was a host at the hotel the Russos were staying at in the Caribbean. Alex had a small crush on him, but soon turned him down once she realized how she would rather spend time with her family.
• Mason Greyback (Gregg Sulkin, season 3 - 4) - long term; first mentioned in season 2 episode " Future Harper" andfirst seen in "Alex Charms a Boy". In "Future Harper", Harper from the future asked Alex if Mason has already broken up with her, but Alex hasn't met him yet. In "Alex Charms a Boy", Mason turns out to be a transfer student from England, perfect in every way except for his artistic vision. Alex casts a spell on Mason, so that she becomes the inspiration for all the art he creates in their school art class. In "Wizards vs. Werewolves", it's revealed that he is a werewolf and he knows Juliet for 300 years and when he sees her, he shouts out that he loves her. After that, Alex is left crying on her family's shoulders. Then he tells her that the necklace shaped in a heart that he gave her it doesn't glow on batteries, but it's magical. So he takes her back to Transylvania, where she threw the necklace. Alex puts the necklace on Mason and the heart glows, which means that he loves her. But it's too late, because he was bitten by Juliet (a vampire), and is transformed to a wolf, forever. It is revealed by Harper in season 3 episode "Alex Russo, Matchmaker?" that he was Alex's longest relationship. He returns in Wizards Unleashed/Alex Saves Mason because Alex saw him on TV so they get back together when Alex makes him human again, with the help of her brothers. He and Alex stay together. He will also be a main character in season 4. In the "Wizards Season Finale", Mason helps the family when they get locked up by the government and eventually escape.In Season 4, Mason and Alex have to break up due to the fact that Alex gave up in the wizard competition, the werewolf always ends up eating the mortal girlfriend. But in "Journey to the Center of Mason" they get back together.
• George (Austin Butler, season 3) - He appears in the episode "Positive Alex" as the school band leader. He is asked out by Alex, but he refuses because of her negativity. However, he becomes attracted to her when she starts acting positive to prove him wrong. In the end, she became too positive because of the magical marker she used, and he was turned off.

• Zack Martin (Dylan Sprouse, season 2) - Zack Martin is seen In the On Deck episode "Double Crossed" (part of the "Wizards on Deck With Hannah Montana" special), Zack is seen flirting with Alex. His obsession comes in handy when she needs to hide in his room, to which he responds by looking up to the sky, putting his hands together and saying, "Thank you!" Later on, when he discovered that Alex used him to cover up a prank, he insults her by calling her cunning, sadistic, and cold-hearted, but this was immediately followed by, "Where have you been all my life?" Alex then showed a temporary interest, but then was dragged away by her brother to be punished for the prank.

External links

• Template:Imdb character