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Jennifer Lopez opens the door to her New York hotel room with only a white robe covering her now-famous behind, sporting a pair of diamond earrings as big as your front teeth. Although half the men in America would drop to their knees to see her like this, Lopez, 28, waves off all the "sexiest woman in the world" talk. "Oh, puh-leeze," she says with a laugh. "I just went back to my old Bronx neighborhood to do a photo shoot for a book about friends [with her assistant, Arlene, who's been her best friend since second grade], and we were wearing our old Catholic-school uniforms. This guy I knew from back in the day saw me and just started laughing. 'Sexiest woman in the world, huh?' he yelled. And we both just fell over laughing." Although Lopez is just stumbling out of bed at two in the afternoon, its not because she's been out all night raging at some bar. "I don't drink or do drugs," she says, "so the only reason I'm ever out late is because I'm dancing." Or doing what she was doing last night: working. Since she splashed on the screen in 1997's Selena, Lopez's movie career has been in full swing. After parts in 1997's Anaconda and U-Turn, she went on to command the highest paycheck ever for a Hispanic woman (two million bucks!) and ignite the screen with George Clooney in last summers Out of Sight.

To Lopez, reaching these goals only means its time to push it further. So last night, she burned the midnight oil working on her first, still-untitled CD; due out this month, its a meld of pop, R & B, and Latin soul. Which leaves her film fans with one big question: Why take off almost a year from movies to do an album? Lopez is not one to ask why. Why not? is more her style.

Behind The Music

Born and raised in the Bronx by Puerto Rican parents, Lopez, the second of three girls, has been singing and dancing since she was a kid. She broke into the business in 1990 as one of the Fly Girls on In Living Color and from there went on to do small parts in TV and film. She got her first lead role in 1995's Money Train with Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, but it was Selena that really got her noticed. She delivered a tour-de-force turn as the Tejano singer with a burning desire to be huge who was murdered by her fan club president. Although she didn't sing in the film, the role really struck a chord with Lopez. "Selena was a spirit," says Lopez. "Nothing was going to stop her. And I admire that kind of drive."

While she says she still enjoys doing films, she admits that singing and dancing have always been her true loves. So she put her talent to the test, cut a demo record, and sent it out to record companies. When Tommy Mottola (the head of Sony music who discovered and later married and divorced Mariah Carey) called, she went to see him and he signed her on the spot.

Then the producers wanted her to write some of the songs, but Lopez felt that she was getting in over her head. But with a little encouragement, she managed to write one very powerful song on the album. Its a ballad about a woman who realizes that she never should have looked at a guy, because as soon as she does, her whole life spins out of control.

While some might think the song refers to her ex-husband, club manager Ojani Noa, Lopez says that nothing could he further from the truth. They met before Lopez had filmed Selena, when Noa still worked in Gloria Estefan's Cuban restaurant, Larios, on the Beach, in Miami. They married in February 1997 after knowing each other less than a year; their marriage broke up before their first anniversary. But Lopez still speaks with Noa regularly and bears no grudge. "I've learned that marriage isn't just about love," she says. "I was young and naive and thought that love conquered the world - but you have to compromise to a certain extent. Sometimes people are just not ready to do that at that point in their lives."

Looking back, she admits that her rising fame probably caused their relationship to founder as well. "It was my time to shine, but he hadn't had his time yet," she says. She also had some growing up to do - which she had to figure out on her own, the hard way. When she first started out, she was completely unguarded in interviews, talking oft the cuff about other actresses and their limitations. That came back to bite her, and she's more careful these days. "You know," she says, leaning forward and fingering those earrings, "if I were a bitch and I were catty about other women, I could live with that interpretation of me. But I am so not that. I don't think of women as a threat. There is only one person on this planet who I'm in competition with - myself."

Another Day, Another Hotel

These days, it takes quite a lot to be Jennifer Lopez. She's gotten over the jitters that came along with her beginning stardom and now she's playing in a much bigger league altogether. When you have to live up to the title of one of People's 50 Most Beautiful, just leaving the hotel is a production.

"Every day," she says quite seriously, "if you go shopping at Barneys or something, you know the paparazzi will be out there. So you better have your nice jeans on, your boots, your nice little ensemble, your glasses - it's all a lot of work. I'm not complaining though; it's a lot of fun too."

And then there are the hotels. Although Lopez is hoping to purchase a home in Miami some time in the next year, she's been living in hotels in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami for the past eight months now. But she's not complaining about that either. She realizes how incredibly lucky she is to have all this. "Arlene and I just went to Paris for a Versace show," she says, "and we were just cracking up. They flew us over on the friggin' Concorde. We got to the airport and they had a bodyguard and a driver for us. We got in a silver Mercedes, we were driving through Paris - I'd never been there before - and I remember saying to Arlene, 'Do you believe this? We're just two simple girls from the Bronx."'

The Man of Her Dreams

With all other running around, though, it's no surprise that the one thing Lopez can't do these days is keep up with a personal life. Although she sees herself as a one-man woman ("what really turns me on is a comfortable sensuality with someone and total security"), she hardly has time to find the man of her dreams. She's planning to do a tour to support the album, and right now, she has three or four films that she's mulling over for when the album is done.

And she's fine with that. "I think the next couple of years are gonna be really hard-work years for me, but then its going to be my time," she says wistfully. Marriage and children are what she sees looming. "I thought I was ready for it with Ojani, but I wasn't. But the next time..." she stares off dreamily and smiles, "I'm going to have it all. Everything. Why not?" Why not, indeed.