Jennifer Lopez covers the March issue of Rolling Stone to promote Marry Me, the movie and the album. She is going all out for the promotion – I think Marry Me looks like a cheeseball rom-com but I’ll admit, I want to see it. The Marry Me album is just that… songs from J.Lo and Maluma from the movie. Jennifer has always wanted to be an album alongside a movie, so here we go. I went into the RS interview expecting a lot of stuff about Ben Affleck. She plays those cards close to the vest, but it’s still a great interview. It’s an interview about work, about expectations, about the racism she’s faced throughout her career, about her many trailblazing successes and how she still feels like an underdog (and I believe she is). You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
On Affleck: “I’m trying not to say too much… I’m really happy. I don’t want to say anything else. I won’t talk about it a lot. We’ve both grown. We’re the same, and we’re different. And that’s what’s nice. Yeah … having a second chance at real love … yeah…. Like I said, we learned a lot. We know what’s real, what’s not real. So it’s just — the game has changed. Again, I’m trying not to say too much.”
Her Marry Me character: “There’s a lot about [Kat] that only somebody like me could understand, right? I had to keep reminding myself: You know what it’s like to be onstage in front of an arena full of people and something embarrassing happens. That’s happened to you. What do you do? What does it feel like when it all falls apart and you go home and you’re on the TV and they’re making fun of you as if it’s not painful? How does that feel? You know what? You’ve cried in a puddle on the floor too. That’s what it feels like. Or going underwater at that point where you feel like you’re drowning, suffocating in your own decisions that you know are not the right ones.”
Her mother would slap her around: “It was that type of mentality: That’s how you keep kids in line. That’s how they were raised, and that’s how I was raised. Listen, my mom was also a fun mom. My mom was also the mom who got me into musicals and introduced me to all kinds of music. I am an entertainer because of my mom. But I’m also able to survive the things I’ve survived in this business because my mom was tough. I don’t think she could realize what she was preparing me for, but she did.”
Always an underdog: “I think I’m an underdog. I always feel like I was scrapping from the bottom. Always. I always felt like I wasn’t the one that was supposed to be in the room. That’s part of being Puerto Rican and from the Bronx and a woman. You know what I mean? All of that stuff. Not being born into a family with money. Not knowing anybody in the business. I just went out there and said, ‘F–k it. I’m going to just try. I’m going to try to get in here.’”
People were so racist to her during the first Bennifer go-around: “It was brutal. It was brutal. It’s one of those things that you bury very deeply so you can move on and get about your business.” She was able to compartmentalize, until eventually she wasn’t. “It’s funny because Ben and I were together, and we were so in love. It was one of the happiest times of my life. But also, there was this other thing happening where we were being criticized, and it really destroyed our relationship from the inside out, because we were just too young to understand at that time what were really the most important things in life.”
Her messy love life: “When I was in my forties, it was like, ‘Well, you’re not really loving yourself. You’re allowing things to happen in your life where you’re overachieving in your work, and your personal life …’” She pauses. “‘Is not…’” She trails off again. “And it fueled my artistic life, which is great in a lot of ways, because it made me want to overachieve. It made me want to feel better. It made me want to do better and be successful and be better as an artist and grow, and I have. But also, you just want to feel good in your life.”
She still isn’t considered for gritty, hard-hitting parts. “I don’t even know half the movies when they come out at the end of the year. I have the top agents in the world, but [those projects] don’t come to me.”
She feels a disconnect within the industry at times: “It’s just 20, 25 years of people going, ‘Well, she’s not that great. She’s pretty and she makes cute music, but it’s not really this and that.’ You know, I think I’ve done some nice work over the years, some really nice work. But there is a club that I just wasn’t a part of. And I always acted like, ‘Yeah, I’m good. I’m fine. I’m OK.’ But it hurts to not be included. I don’t know if I will ever be. There is an inner circle, like, ‘We are the great artists.’ And then there’s the pop artists.”
RS talks about Hustlers, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe and SAG Award but was snubbed at the Oscars. You can say, oh, that was because it was a movie directed by a woman about working class women who hustled and robbed wealthy men, the Academy was never going to like it. But it felt personal to Jennifer and I think it was personal. And yes, her success was and is undeniable, but I completely understand how and why she still feels like that Fly Girl hustling to make it, hustling to get to the next level, the elite club where she gets the good scripts and the industry recognition. Where she won’t be treated as the maid.
Something else she mentions in this piece was that “It wasn’t even that long ago that she was basically broke.” Her twins were toddlers, she was divorcing Marc Anthony and she was over 40. No one was buying her albums, no one would hire her for anything and even her business manager told her she couldn’t get work at that moment. She ended up going on American Idol and relaunching herself and working her way to the top all over again.
Cover & IG courtesy of Rolling Stone.
The rare interview that made me look at a celebrity in a new light again. I was enjoying the Bennifer renaissance for the gossip fun but also definitely kept rolling my eyes at her for picking up that wreck of a dude. I mean she is so much better than him.
Reading this though? I get it. She’s ALL THAT and still walking through the world being told she’s not enough on some level. She’s not getting the respect from her peers and the Oscar snub really showed it.
Matthew McConnasomething got nominated for a stripper part and they rolled out the red carpet. And Jennifer Lopez delivers that dance sequence and acts her ass off and gets zip.
I can see how being with Americas favourite Boston Dude feels like the right move to her.
MMcC wasn’t nominated for Magic Mike, he was nominated (and won) for Dallas Buyers Club (a *completely* different movie). As far as JLo, no one can deny the success she’s achieved and how hard she’s worked to achieve it, but imo she’s not that great of an actress. She’s not terrible, or even close to that, but she hasn’t really done anything to show real range or truly disappeared into a role making me forget that I’m watching “JLo”. Yeah, Hustlers was a good movie and she was good in it, but obviously it wasn’t enough to snag an Oscar nom (as it goes every year…there’s always at least one “snub”). She needs to stop with the rom-coms and do more films like Hustlers and Out of Sight, that alone would greatly increase her chances (I know she said she’s barely offered those but she could always go the route of Reese Witherspoon and the like who took matters into their own hands and started producing the films they wanted to do themselves).
But that could be said for a number of actors though. Does channing Tatum have great range? Mark wahlberg? Kristen Stewart? Gwyneth Paltrow? Yet they have done a lot more prestige projects than her. There’s also the fact that as an actor you develop more if you are given good projects and is a hard worker. Look at Robert pattison and Kirsten Stewart none of them were award worthy at the beginning of their career. They were both very wooden and limited. Especially pattison has developed into a fine actor. There is no doubt it’s because he was given the chance to work on his craft through good projects with really good directors. If he was stuck doing rom coms and teen movies he wouldn’t have become the actor he is now. It’s probably also to do with jlos generation ( but she’s the same generation as Paltrow and wahlberg) but it’s still a different ball game for actors from latinx and black backgrounds then for white actors to this day. So yeah it’s not as simple as she hasn’t got range.
Well, I don’t like any of the actors you mentioned. Did Tatum and Wahlberg get an Oscar? I think it’s a travesty that KStew and Patrow did. I didn’t think Paltrow deserved it at all, and I never think that KStew disappears into her role, she’s always KStew.
I also kind of question the idea that bad actors need chances to improve. It’s Hollywood. They attract talent that’s 1 in a million, supposedly. There’s always a Leo Di Caprio or a Timothy Chalamet somewhere out there, desperate for a breakout role. So, why give the parts to mediocre actors in a hope that they “grow” into them? Why not find that kid who is already talented enough for the part? The only reason they hired Pattison is because he brought his fandom to the movie. So, if anything, I feel like what you’re describing is what Hollywood should never do – hire mediocrity because it’s lucrative, rather than keep giving it a chance to improve, often due to nepotism.
She was amazing in Out of sight…she is great in rom coms but she was amazing in that…
Was scrolling down to say exactly the same thing, she’s so good in Out of Sight – which is just an all round excellent movie. She was brilliant in Hustlers too. I’d love for her to get grittier roles, wonder if she’d ever do a tv series
She did do a TV series about 6 years ago – a police procedural called Shades of Blue. She played a corrupt cop who was working for the FBI…or something. It lasted 3 seasons, although I think the last one was short. The plot was a mess, but she got generally good reviews.
Here for the Out of Sight comment. That’s still one of my favorite movies. The hotel bar scene was epic. I remember seeing it in a crowded theater and you could have heard a pin drop. Like not one popcorn munch or soda sip.
That was an excellent movie and she held her own up against Clooney, and Rhimes, who truly started from the bottom. I remember Clooney played bit parts on sitcoms for years before he landed that TV series gig, not that I watched it. Clooney could have easily traded on his Aunts tails but chose not to. As for JLo, she could go the Witherspoon route and start her own production company. Add Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion, or Ava DuVerney. There are many up and coming female director and take off with it.
I don’t think that female directors get enough love from the academy either. It’s time for them to change their tune. WOC, women director’s, POC and so forth.
WORD.
JLO and Clooney need to do another movie. Great chemistry!!
She was! I also loved her in Money Train.. I thought her romcoms were so good. Maid in Manhattan, The Wedding Planner. She carved out a niche and ran with it. She is a fantastic actress and performer imo. I was never a huge fan of her songs, but Jenny from the Block was awesome. Oh, and I loved her in Selena! She has deserved awards for a few things, I think!
It’s unfortunate that she doesn’t get respect for not being Hollywood ‘royalty’. Nepotism will never go away it seems. It has fueled her drive though, which is a great message for kids to take away from her story. I hope they get it.
Yeah i remember the years before getting her American Idol gig,that opportunity really relaunced her she was all but forgotten.
* And i watched Marry Me over the weekend…it was ridiculously terrible,lol
Most industries are like this. You have to squirrel away money. You have to be able to reinvent yourself. You have to want to succeed any way you can. Hustlers work harder than anybody out there
Speaking of Hustlers, I hope Julia kept that Birkin bag. LOL
This was an interesting read and quite eye-opening on how Jennifer sees herself and her career. I do agree that she was (and is) still shutdown from “serious acting” conversations even though she is a good actress. However, I never got the hype about her role in Hustlers, I finally saw it at the end of last year and I was confused about people going on and on her being snubbed for an Oscar nom. Her acting was good but the role wasn’t amazing or a highlight whatsoever among the competitors of that year.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s got hustle and she’s one of the hardest working individuals, but… If you want grittier roles, want the industry to respect you, use your platform/money to make that happen. She could make type of movie she wants with her production company and she chooses to make films like “Marry Me.”
She should have taken the advice from her current BF… Ben said a very long time ago, no one would give him a part, so he wrote a script (GWH), making one for himself. And there’s plenty of other women who have done the same. Reese Witherspoon comes to mind. (Grant it she’s white and an Oscar winner, but she did create the the projects she wanted to get made, e.g. Little Fires Everywhere.)
As for the comment about Ben, What does she mean by “the game has changed?”
Re: her developing her own work- exactly. She has far more resources than most people, she may need to channel money into development if she wants better roles.
I haven’t followed Jennifer’s career super closely, but I know that she has produced several projects. I think she produced all of her tv shows (except American Icon). Developing your own projects is great, but it can only get you so far. You still need to collaborate with others like financers, distributors, filmmakers etc. I think her point is that is that if people don’t take her view her as a serious actress, then they aren’t going to want to back her more serious endeavors.
@Goldie, she hasn’t proven herself, end of. It’s Hollywood. No one is going to just give you something because you want it. Plenty of filmmakers make indie flicks with little to no budget and sell it to studios. Otherwise they wouldn’t have film festivals. She could do it, she just doesn’t. Plenty of women have… Ten million dollars to her is a drop in the bucket, and that’s a big budget for an indie flick. I, Tonya was made on $11 million: https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a850105/margot-robbie-i-tonya-producing-tonya-harding/
Margot Robbie didn’t wait for an offer for a great part, so she produced it herself. JLo needs to stop complaining. As a filmmaker myself, it annoys the hell out of me to hear her say this.
I agree Goldie. Actors don’t place themselves, they are placed. If every actor could, they would, and she’s right. She’s on the periphery, but she’s not a first choice. She is not part of the elites, but she’s an A-List. There are doors that haven’t opened for her, and most likely never will because other people have made that decision for her,
Many actors have not liked the opportunities presented to them and have formed production companies to go out and find scripts they can develop, she doesn’t have to wait around to be placed in something. She just doesn’t want to take the financial or creative risk herself. She wants other people to bet on her for something she is unproven at and not bet on it herself. She could self -fund, soup to nuts. Her boyfriend has directed several films, he knows how this works, this is very figure-out able, she just doesn’t want to do it herself.
I am not sure having great agents is enough anymore, many of the people getting really meaty parts are developing projects themselves from the point of conception. I think it is very hard to forget someone who has a global presence and is in the media every.single.day with her relationship (also with her last relationship) or her work is who they are when you see them on screen which probably isn’t helping her. Hustlers was entertaining but it borrowed from a lot of other films in terms of how it was shot and her character, honestly, if you read the magazine piece that it was based on, should have been a whole lot grittier. I think she is really talented and I don’t doubt she has faced a ton on racism and sexism but being an icon, in the way that she does it, (and she truly is an icon) makes the acting thing tough.
El Cantante. With Marc Anthony.
Good interview. Love what she is wearing on the cover. Bring back shoulder pads. I don’t like how she praised her mom for slapping her. She had to put a positive spin on it as a way to protect her own psyche. I hope her Affleck bliss lasts and he doesn’t ruin it for her.
Agreed! She was excellent in Out of Sight! She held her own against George Clooney and the Elmore Leonard dialogue. She was also excellent in The Cell. She stood up to Vincent D’onofrio and stood out from the bizarre art house style of Tarsem Singh. I have so much respect for how she elevates her roles/songs/dancing/opportunities through hustle. She puts old fashioned hard work into everything.
I think JLo will struggle to be taken seriously as an actress because she has used her personal life to stay famous. Jlo is more known for her relationships then her acting which she was how she kept her name in the tabloids. Actresses like Octavia Spencer, Cate Blanchett, Olivia Coleman and viola Davis all let their work speak for itself which is what jlo needs to do.
I jyst want to add Frances McDormand to your list. The epitome of letting her work talk for itself, she doesn’t campaign for Oscars whatsoever, has 3 Oscars. Her husband doesn’t campaign either. He has 4 Oscars. Pretty sure JLO could learn from their 7 cumulative Oscars.
She needs to stop putting her celebrity above her work. Period. (And having a rep as a hard-to-please diva about triflin’ stuff does not help. :P) She should either reach out to directors whom she’s had success with before (Soderbergh, Nava) or she needs to nail a tough part in an indie that will show what she can do (like Mariah Carey in Precious.) You can’t live on the red carpet/in the tabloids . . . then complain because you aren’t being taken seriously as an artist. (She should take a cue from Tom Bateman, who noted he keeps his private life private because putting everything out there wastes energy he needs for his work–and makes people sick of you from overexposure.)Pick a lane already.
Jennifer was GD delightful with Owen Wilson in Marry Me. It was a sweet little romcom and they had really great chemistry together.
I’m not even a jlo fan and I thought it was good for a rom com.
Few out there would be able to outwork this woman.
I watched Marry Me on Peacock and yes it was cheesy, but oh I needed a cheesy sweet movie. I really liked it and will probably watch it again. One song really got me – On My Way. Really good song.
Yeees I actually didn’t get a chance to watch it yet as I was enjoying the beautiful sunny weather in SF as we’re back to cold again today lol
I do love the soundtrack and On My Way is really good, also love Church, so catchy and Love Of My Life and After Love, you Can tell they’re very personal.
She’s for sure the hardest working woman in the business!
And for a romcom it’s getting great reviews on RT, not everything JS to be a super deep philosophical movie 🤪
It will be interesting to see if Ben will put JL in any future film he directs..
I think her idea and my idea of broke is very different. She could sell one car alone and be set. And a lot of working mothers going through a divorce and unable to make ends meet at work in the boys club struggle just to literally feed their kids. She had everything she could possibly need and way more. So that’s not the narrative to ever push.
That said, I’m sure she hustled and seems like a hardworking person. Not a fan of some things I hear regarding the way she treats people but I respect the hustle. She was great in the movie Enough, though. I think she is talented. Many people are and they can’t even get into the room to begin with. But just because she has so much doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the right to want to achieve more. We all do. My point is she has a lot to be grateful for as well.
I actually like Ben. He has an addiction and he also seems more humble as a person in the way he treats others. Maybe they balance each other out.
She’s fun enough to watch in airy rom coms, and yes she’s a hard worker, but she’s not going to be considered for “grittier” roles because she’s not considered a serious actor due to her general lack of acting chops. She’s had a couple of moments, but meh. When she was playing Selena, essentially a ramped up version of herself, she did great. And Hustlers? Same thing, just an older, glammed up situation. She can’t play something that isn’t a version of JLo, and she can’t seem to be famous without marketing her personal life.
I know people stan her like crazy, but aside from her work ethic, her talent is middling at best, and her charm and hustle gets her the rest of the way.
I really hope she and Ben don’t repeat the “Gobble gobble” Gigli mistake.
I wouldnt see any of her movies anymore, not a great actress.
She was good on American Idol.
She should do something on one of the streaming networks.
Something gritty.
She was good in Out of Sight. That’s it. Everything else was fair. Not bad but just okay. Why should we feel bad for a person who was celebrated for all the urban songs that put her on but was actually sung by Ashanti. She treats the staff and underlings bad but it poor Jen from the Block. Get the eff out of here.