You go J.Lo
It's a quarter to one in the morning, but who could be tired knowing that Jennifer Lopez will be calling any moment? True, she was supposed to call two hours ago (well, actually, the night before) but when you consider what the girl has going on-a thriving movie career, two platinum albums, and a new venture into fashion, who could blame her for being a little late?
Practically no one. Though lately gossip columns have been full of snippy items about what a diva she's become, Lopez remains bulletproof to her fans, and she has quite a few of those. Her looks and talent have gotten her far, but her shrewd business sense and something beyond her control-her universal appeal- have taken her from actress to performer to single-named star. Earlier this year, she became only the third woman ever to have a number one album and movie at the same time (a bit of an overachiever, she also hosted SNL the following week). Comparisons to another single-named star, Madonna, are almost inevitable.
Lopez's achievements are great, but they seem especially so because she's a Latina. (Hey, we know it shouldn't be like that, but it is, and she knows it, too.) At 30, she's the highest paid Latina in Hollywood, and she's rarely out of work. Out now is Angel Eyes, in which Lopez stars as a cop dealing with the after effects of an abusive childhood and helping Jim Caviezel's character get over losing his wife and child. On this particular day, she'll be calling from the car on the way home from working on her next film, Enough.
Of course, you can be phenomenally successful and not have everything figured out. A devout romantic, Lopez once fell in love with her waiter and married him; she and Ojani Noa divorced less than a year later, but she wasn't bitter. Earlier this year, her much publicized romance with Sean "Puffy" Combs came to an end shortly before he was acquitted of weapons and bribery charges. "Do not ask about him," her publicist warns beforehand. Well, it's not like there's not a lot of other stuff to talk about. And hey, there's the phone…
Jennifer Lopez: I had to do a training session [for a fight scene] and we ran a little late. I apologize for that.
Latina: No problem. So, you were Latina's first cover. And here we are again, five years and two other Latina covers later. Only now, you're an A-list movie star and a platinum pop star.
JL: Has it been 5 years? Damn! You know, this feels so good, because back then, Latina really took a chance on me. I mean, I hadn't even gotten the part for Selena yet. I guess they felt like I had potential.
L: It turns out you were a pretty good bet. So now we can add "clothing designer" to your resume?
JL: Yeah. The deal is being closed right now. Basically, it'll be my own line of clothing that I'm doing in a joint venture with Andy Hilfiger. I'm really excited about it because it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. We'll have the line out for the winter holidays.
L: So between your film career, your albums, and this, you're a very powerful woman.
JL: [Laughing] I guess.
L: Well you seem very comfortable being in a position of power. Are you?
JL: I'm comfortable pursuing my dreams, so in that sense…I don't know if that's being in a position of power. I don't know if I would feel that comfortable running someone else's stuff. But I guess I am very comfortable because I don't try to be anything but myself.
L: So you're more ambitious?
JL: If I want something and I want to go after it, if it's organic to me, yeah I don't let anything hold me back from it. But I feel sometimes that people say I'm ambitious and they want to trap me into something negative. Especially when they use the word with a woman. Then it has a negative connotation, which is unfair. If men are ambitious, it's the most wonderful thing in the word. But in this society, if you say "ambitious" about a woman, it's like a dirty word.
L: There's another word people use when a woman has power and ambition: diva.
JLO: Oh, yeah. It's used too loosely now; people are more willing to use it negatively. When it was a compliment, people used the word less.
L: Your situation is particularly interesting, not only because you're a woman, but because you're a Hispanic woman, and traditionally we're not supposed to be powerful or enjoy it if we are.
JL: Oh please. Let's not even go there. This is, like, thinking from the Stone Age. My mother and father moved here from PR. They grew up in a different time. They still had their parents' views, and then they came into this. I'm first-generation American, but I'm Latina, too, and I feel like our generation, having grown up in America and realized all the opportunities that are available, we are the new generation of Latin women. We can accomplish whatever we want, and the opportunities are out there. I don't let anybody tell me what I can and can't do.
L: What about family pressure? There's always an abuela somewhere saying, "Get married, have kids, settle down…"
JL: [She laughs]. I have to say that my mother, my father, and all the women in my family always taught me to be independent. My mother said, "Don't depend on anybody for anything. Have your own stuff. Do what you want." They always taught us that with hard work, we could accomplish whatever we wanted to. And that's a credit to all the strong women in my family.
L: Want to tell us a little about your new guy, Cris Judd?
JL: Uh-uh. That's all for me.
L: OK, love in general: Are you old-fashioned or forward-thinking when it comes to romance?
JL: I'm more old-fashioned.
L: Have you ever asked a guy out on a date?
JL: Asked a guy out? No!
L: What are the ingredients for a perfect man?
JL: Somebody who's understanding about what I do for a living. Somebody who's gentle and kind but still has strength. [Suddenly, lots of barking noises in the background, then talking to dogs.] Helloooo! Hi! Oh, she's such a baby. {Back to phone conversation.] That's Reina, my little queen, who's a Chihuahua. And I have Bootsie, my cocker spaniel, who's kind of my old gangster dog. I've had her for years. And Gussy Poo Poo, who's a big basset hound. I'm sorry. I just got home from the studio.
L: What movie are you working on now?
JL: It's called Enough, and it's about a young girl, just out of college, whose mother died, and she starts a new life. She meets this guy, who's like a knight in shining armor and marries him, and then he turns out to be kind of abusive, and she has to go on the run with her child. Basically, it's about her taking back her power. To me, it's an important movie in that way because I feel as women we give up so much in a relationship when we love somebody. We tend to give away all of our power because we love so completely. But it's about finding a balance- loving someone, but still being an individual. So I think it's important on many levels, not just on such an extreme level where a woman is abused every nine seconds and all those horrible statistics, but even on smaller levels, like being in a relationship that you know you shouldn't be in. It's about not losing yourself in a relationship, about going, "Wait a minute, I deserve this. I'm a person, too." So I'm really happy about the movie, and hopefully, it'll turn out to be everything I envision.
L: You've done comedy, drama, horror, noir, all different kinds of movies. You've been very careful not to restrict yourself to any one genre.
JL: From the beginning I realized that being Latina, I was going to have certain obstacles to overcome that maybe other actresses wouldn't. So I always made very specific choices
Not to get pigeon-holed, not to ever let anybody say "She can't do that." Even from the first two choices [My Family, and Money Train], I made sure that people couldn't say I did the same part twice. That was a conscious effort on my part.
L: What has been your favorite role so far?
JL: I think playing Selena will always be my favorite, unless something amazing-amazing-comes along. But those kinds of roles don't come around all the time.
L: What's going on with your tour?
JL: I think we're going to push the tour till spring of next year. That way, I'll have more time to rehearse for the tour and really get it to where I want it. I mean, like everything I do, I don't like to go out with anything premature, [done] halfway. I like to get it 100% the way I want it. This is something I've dreamed about since I was a little girl-performing onstage, singing and dancing my own stuff-So I just wouldn't want it to be anything less than what I had fantasized.
L: If you had to pick one song on J.Lo to do all your talking for you, which would it be?
JL: The chorus to "I'm Real"- I'm real, what you get is what you see-is something really special to me. I try to tell people, look at me to see who I am, not at what people write about me, not at what people say about me. I feel there's a lot of speculation and controversy and all this stuff that comes with being a celebrity. But I wear what I wear because I like it, not because I am trying to cause any scandal or to shock or to make people buy records. This is all just who I am. It's from my heart, it's from my soul, and I think the fans know that.
L: I know your fans are extremely important to you, but do you feel like you particularly belong to your Hispanic fans in some way?
JL: I think being that I'm Latina, I can't help buy feel like that. I definitely do belong to them.
L: Well, you're like a badge of honor. You and Benicio del Toro.
JL: Oh, I was so happy when Benicio won the Oscar. I wanted to get up and yell, "Borinquen!" But that would've been too ghetto, you know what I mean?
