Wednesday, 2/26/97
Hard work pays off for Lopez in her busiest year yet
Successful actress now ready for marriage and Latin music
album
By Aimee Phan
Daily Bruin Contributor
No one ever said show business was easy. Actress Jennifer Lopez,
who is currently in "Blood and Wine," learned this early on when
she was a singer and dancer for a musical theater company and
discovered that she was the only member without a solo.
"Everybody had gotten a solo except me so I asked the director
why I didn’t get one," Lopez says. "It wasn’t fair, I was the only
one in the company. And the director told me there was absolutely
nothing left. So I called my mother crying, ‘This sucks, I’m just
as good as everyone here, I don’t understand.’ And my mother says
to me, ‘Let me tell you something, don’t you ever call me crying
again. You wanted to be in this business, so toughen up.’ It was
the best advice she had ever given me."
And she certainly did toughen up. Not allowing this one
discouraging experience to deter her, Lopez spent several years in
the musical theater circuit before branching out into acting in
television shows and films.
"I always knew I wanted to be in show business since," Lopez
says. "I knew I was a performer, so I started off dancing and
singing and doing musical theater and videos. Once I came out to
L.A., I started studying acting."
Her hard work paid off. The energetic and spirited actress beat
out 2,000 women in a national competition to become a "Fly Girl" on
the television show, "In Living Color." This led to several
television roles before her film debut in Gregory Nava’s "My
Family" and subsequent parts in such movies as "Money Train" and
"Jack."
This year is Lopez’s biggest and busiest so far, with four new
films coming out, including "Blood & Wine" with Jack Nicholson
and Stephen Dorff, "U-Turn" for Oliver Stone, "Thriller" with Ice
Cube, and the much talked-about "Selena," the movie based on the
life of the slain tejano singer. Although this busy schedule proved
to be very exhausting, Lopez is nonetheless grateful for the
success she is experiencing.
"The best part of this busy year is that I’ve gotten to work
with the best people in the business, the worst part is that I was
almost to the point of a nervous breakdown by the end of the year,"
Lopez says. "I went from one film to another without a day off in
between. I was dying for Christmas to come in for couple of weeks
off in December."
In "Blood & Wine," Lopez plays Gabriella, Nicholson’s sexy
mistress, who inadvertently helps his character steal a diamond
necklace, which inevitably leads to a web of deceit and tragedy.
With one of the most legendary actors in Hollywood playing her
lover, Lopez was understandably nervous about working with
Academy-Award winning Nicholson.
"When Jack was in the room, everybody would take notice," Lopez
remembers. "He has this huge star quality to him. So I was a little
nervous and anxious, like that first day of school feeling. But I
had just gotten off working with Francis (Coppola, in "Jack,") so I
was at a good place. I had earned the part, it wasn’t like they
offered it to me. I auditioned for it many times before Bob
(Rafelson, the director) decided I was the one."
While working with Nicholson and Rafelson was exciting in itself
for Lopez, she will probably always associate "Blood & Wine"
with a more important event in her life. During the shooting in
Miami, Lopez met her future fiance, Ojani Noa.
"I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship with my high
school sweetheart David when I met Ojani," Lopez recalls. "He was
working as a waiter in a restaurant and I saw him and said, ‘That’s
the man I’m going to marry.’ Of course, I was joking at the
time!"
Even though Lopez was a successful actress in film and
television, she was still a little shy when it came to introducing
herself to Noa.
"He ignored me the whole time we were filming. But my girlfriend
kept thinking we’d be perfect together and saying, ‘I know there’s
something there, there’s something there.’ But I was like ‘He does
not know that I’m alive so forget it!’"
Eventually, Lopez’s friend introduced the two to each other and
soon, Lopez and Noa became inseparable. He even moved out to Los
Angeles during her hectic filming schedule to be closer to her. At
the "Selena" wrap party at the Hard Rock Cafe, Noa proposed to
Lopez in front of the entire cast and crew.
Having her boyfriend propose to her at the end of a film that is
very close to her heart made "Selena" even more special to Lopez.
While "Selena" has been her favorite role so far in her young
career, she admits it was sometimes difficult to portray this woman
who is still such an icon to her devoted fans.
"The biggest challenge of doing ‘Selena’ was just the fact that
she is still fresh in her fans’ and the public’s mind. She means a
lot to me. It was important for me to do a good job, for me, for
her, for her fans, and for people in 50 years to know who she was
and what she was at the forefront of in this country."
Lopez considers herself very lucky for her level of success in
the film industry, but plans to take a break from movies to
concentrate on making a record album. She admits that playing
Selena during her concert scenes inspired her to return to
singing.
"Doing ‘Selena’ definitely reminded me how much I missed
singing," Lopez says. "Being onstage (in Selena’s concert scenes)
was incredible. I’m very serious about doing a Latin album. I love
Spanish music.
"Right now, I just want to get married, go on a little
honeymoon, and work on a little music."Twentieth Century Fox
Jennifer Lopez stars opposite Jack Nicholson in "Blood &
Wine."
Lopez considers herself very lucky for her level of success.