David Henrie reflects on his friendship with Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez and David Henrie have become close friends over the years after Wizards of Waverly Place.

As the duo are now returning returning in Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, Henrie talked about their friendship in an interview with PEOPLE.

He said, "It's been wonderful. Despite all of her massive successes, her and I, our relationship has just withstood all that because I don't know, we're just real with each other."

"We both were close before any of that stuff started. She knows I'm going to be myself with her, and I'm going to be genuine and authentic and shoot her straight. I think there's a freedom to that that is tough to come by," he added.

Henrie reflected on how the sequel series "happened in a really organic way" despite no initial plans for it.

"Selena and I remained very good friends from the end of the show, and I got married, she became good friends with my wife, and we would just all get together and have a glass of wine and just talk about memorie," he said, adding, "It always found its way to Wizards, and we would then find ourselves joking about where would the characters be, what would they be doing. And it just evolved."

"At a certain point, I started having kids and I'm like, it's been 17 years since we started this show. And I was like, 'Selena, let's have this same conversation we're having right now without wine in front of Disney and see what happens' And we did, and they liked it," Henrie shared.