One of my favorite parts of actors’ Oscar campaigns is when they do really calm, peaceful interviews on 60 Minutes or CBS Sunday Mornings or even the Today Show. Like, promotional tours have been dumbed down so much that actors are just taking stupid quizzes or playing games to hustle their movies. It’s nice to see the more traditional interview forms survive. So, Jennifer Lopez spoke to CBS Sunday Morning to promote Kiss of the Spider Woman, which is quite buzzy. She’s enormously proud of the film and she’s doing the most to promote it. The most being… talking about her most recent divorce and what she learned from it. About thirteen months ago, Jennifer filed for divorce from Ben Affleck and they’ve barely spoken since, nor have they spoken about each other since.

Bennifer 2.0 may have come and gone, but the relationship has had a lasting, positive impact on Jennifer Lopez. In an interview with CBS Sunday morning, the pop star and actress opened up about her divorce from her fourth husband, Ben Affleck, saying that her whirlwind romance with her former fiancé was “the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed me.”

When asked how she handled shooting the film while going through a separation and personal turmoil, Lopez laughed and replied, “barely. It was tough,” she added. “It was a tough time.”

But it wasn’t all bad. Lopez shared that filming Kiss of the Spider Woman provided a nice distraction from her own tumultuous personal life. “It was the best and the worst of times,” she said. “Every moment on set, and every moment I was doing this role, I was so happy. And then back home, it was not great. It was like, ‘Oh, how do I reconcile this?’

“You get through it,” Lopez said, of her divorce from Affleck. “Honestly, I have to say, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed me—it didn’t change me, it helped me grow in a way that I needed to grow, become more self-aware. I’m a different person now than I was last year.”

Although their marriage didn’t last, Affleck helped produce Kiss of the Spider Woman via his production company Artists Equity, which he founded with his best friend Matt Damon. Lopez told CBS Sunday Morning that the movie would not have been made without Affleck’s support. “ll always give him that credit,” she said.

Although she’s earning early Oscar buzz for her work, Lopez told CBS that she’s not focusing on the hype. It’s great to be in the conversation that you’re doing work that people recognize and that they love,” she said. “That’s enough. It’s not that you can’t want more, or that you don’t want to stand up there and say thank you. Of course we all want that. But I realized that I don’t need it in the way that maybe I thought when I was younger. Not that I wouldn’t love it!”

[From Vanity Fair]

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed me—it didn’t change me, it helped me grow in a way that I needed to grow, become more self-aware…” My theory is that Jennifer was/is a love addict and the marriage to Ben was similar to a relapse. She couldn’t contain her glee at getting back with Ben and her glee made her reckless personally and professionally. Not that I’m blaming it on Jennifer, btw. I think she would have settled down eventually and she was absolutely in it for the long haul. Ben just did what he always does: sabotaged himself and his relationships. Anyway, I hope J.Lo is in a better place these days.

She’s so beautiful but her hair looked TERRIBLE in this interview.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid and CBS.