LOS ANGELES (AP) – Throughout her career, Jennifer Lopez has been hailed as an epochal, prolific and hard-working artiste. One adjective not often associated with the pop icon-turned-actor and movie producer, however, is self-deprecating.
But as she readies to drop her first studio album in a decade, Lopez is performing a kind of fictionalised mea culpa about her past romantic relationships in This is Me… Now: A Love Story, hitting Prime Video on Friday in tandem with the album’s release. Live Nation also announced on Thursday that Lopez will embark on a 30-plus city tour beginning June 26 in Orlando, Florida.
The 65-minute musical film, which she self-financed, follows a hopeless romantic in search of love (Lopez) and the myriad ways she contends with repeated heartbreak, including visits to her therapist (played by Fat Joe) and sobbing through old romantic films.
From a distance, a star-studded Zodiac council, played by Jane Fonda, Post Malone, Keke Palmer, Sofia Vergara and others, provide a sympathetic but mercilessly faultfinding commentary on her desperation for love, failed marriages (Lopez is on her fourth) – and rebounding relationships.
At 54, Lopez said her ninth studio album and its accompanying film were the result of a sudden burst of inspiration, a large part of which she attributes to her rekindled romance with and marriage to Ben Affleck.
Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: It’s been a decade since your last album. Does making music feel like riding a bike for you or do you have to get back into gear?
LOPEZ: You know, it’s a scary thing whenever you start something new again. Even when I start a movie and I haven’t done a movie in a few months or a year or whatever. But this was really different because I hadn’t been inspired to really go into the studio and write a whole album for years. I did Marry Me a few years ago for the movie, but that was not a Jennifer Lopez album, not a J.Lo album. I just hadn’t been inspired at all.
So, to actually get inspiration was the kind of gift, the exciting thing, and wanting to go in there. And yes, I was nervous at first, but I went in there on the first day and I said, “This is the mission.” We made This is me… Then 20 years ago, and we’re going to make This Is Me…Now. This miracle has happened, a second chance. And I’d love to capture this moment in time the way that album captured that moment in time.
AP: You talked about people not understanding the vision for the film initially and having to really stand your ground.
LOPEZ: Nobody wanted to make the project. There doesn’t seem to be a big appetite for musical projects from the powers that be these days, which is sad because I remember growing up and loving to see these music projects from my favorite artistes, but they just don’t see it that way.
I knew that it was going to be a big risk, but something was driving me to really get it done. I knew it was hard because it hadn’t been done before so it was hard to describe to people.
When you see it, you’re like, “Oh yeah, I’ve never seen anything like this before” – I said, “When they see it, they’re going to get it.” And that’s what happened. It could have really turned out badly. And by the way, every day that’s how I felt, that this could really turn out badly. But I still stayed the course like the captain of the ship in the middle of the storm.
It’s like “We really could die right now, but we’re going to keep going.”
AP: Do you feel like, because your relationships have been so public, that you’ve been harder on yourself about them?
LOPEZ: Oh yeah. 100 per cent. It’s made me doubt myself and really feel bad about myself at times. Made me feel like I wanted to quit at times. But at the end of the day, I feel like you kind of have to do this thing where you learn how to navigate it.
You take the things that could be constructive about that and use it, and the rest you kind of just throw away as kind of like haterations or, you know, other things like that and just be like, “Whatever. I know who I am, I know what I want to do.”
You know? And little by little, you know, as you get older and you get more mature and you have more experience, you start realising more what’s real.
AP: The film is a journey of self-love. But you shared that this album was heavily inspired by rekindling your relationship with Ben. How do those two things relate to each other?
LOPEZ: Well, I think what people would kind of assume is that this (movie) is a story about that. But the truth is, the story is not about that. Really, the story is about your journey as a person, it’s about one person’s journey and what it takes to get from heartbreak back to love.
