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Jennifer Lopez Says She’s ‘Different Person’ from Last Year in the ‘Best Ways’ (Exclusive)

In: News, TV

Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh are dishing on their new film “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” the first big-screen adaptation of the 1993 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.

“Extra’s” Tommy DiDario spoke with the stars, which marked Lopez’s debut movie musical.

Lopez plays fictional actress Ingrid Luna, as well as two movie characters embodied by Luna — fantasy woman Aurora and Death herself, the Spider Woman. Tonatiuh plays Luis Molina, a gay hairdresser imprisoned in Argentina during that country’s brutal Dirty War circa 1981. His cellmate is Valentin Arregui Paz, a Marxist activist, played by Diego Luna.

Throughout the film, Molina entertains and distracts Valentin by retelling the plot of Luna’s campy yet emotional movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

Lopez told “Extra” she waited a long time for this juicy role!

Referencing her star-making performance in the 1997 film “Selena,” J.Lo said, “They don’t come along all the time, you know? I think the last role of this type of magnitude is maybe Selena, for me, which was years ago, 25 years ago — so long ago. But they come along in your career — and I’ve had some great roles, don’t get me wrong, and I’ve done some great movies that I love — but there’s certain roles that really are kind of like defining for you, that you wait for, or they have certain elements that you just kind of have so much to give to what it has to say. And when I did ‘Selena,’ at that point in my life, I was just, you know, a budding, young actor and singer myself. And she was cut down in the middle of her life. And it was something that taught me so much and did so much for me, not just for my career, but for me as a person.”

She went on, “And I think these types of roles do change you in that way. And this was really about this woman who wants to get love, right? Can’t find it. Feels cursed, in a way, and this role having the three different parts to play… and then having Tonatiuh’s character, Diego’s character, all of them wanting to be loved and to be seen… was just such a beautiful thing to put out into the world in this moment, but also a beautiful thing for me to have as a person right now.”

Jennifer has changed a lot from when she shot this film. At the time, her marriage to Ben Affleck was deteriorating. Their divorce was finalized this past January.

In spite of the personal turmoil, Affleck is one of the film’s producers.

She noted, “I mean, a lot happened to me, period, during the filming of this movie, and then after that, I had to cancel a tour. A lot of things happened! So, I really took a year off after this film and just stayed home and concentrated on my children and my own personal growth, and so I am a different person from the person I was when I was filming this movie. So very different… in the best ways.”

Lopez added, “It feels very good.”

Tonatiuh shared his initial reaction to hearing that he was doing a movie with Jennifer, saying, “I literally just shut down!”

He said the film’s director, Oscar winner Bill Condon, called him and simply said, “You got it.”

Tonatiuh said his response was, “Are you lying?”

Jennifer chimed in, “You went into shock,” to which Tonatiuh admitted, “I went into straight-up shock.”

Tonatiuh snapped out of it and switched over into planning mode, in part because along with playing Molina, he plays fictional Hollywood actor Kendall Nesbitt in the movie-within-the-movie.

“The singing, the dancing, they don’t come across often,” he said, describing his work as, “Playing multiple characters, doing two movies, essentially.”

He pointed out that his two roles were very disparate, and a huge opportunity, saying he was excited about, “Getting to play Kendall in a classic, traditional, masculine form, and then being essentially genderless as Molina and doing a two-person play in that world.”

Tonatiuh opened up on the message of the film, stressing, “‘You’re not alone’ is the ultimate message that I feel like people, and I even, walked away with.”

He continued, “And getting to center non-binary folk, genderqueer folk, and Latinos in a film that is universal by nature, even though it’s very specific… just feels great.”

Lopez shared her own view, saying, “I think for me, it’s about not looking at who people are on the outside, but looking at their humanity on the inside and knowing that all of us are people who want to be loved and to be seen. And that’s what it’s about. So, you have these two political prisoners who are escaping into this musical world just to make their life more bearable in that moment, you know, and that’s what movies and art does for us. But that they are able to come together through that and really see and appreciate who the other person is and fall in love with each other… just for who they are on the inside, and forget about the outside and what their life has been or their political views have been or their religious views or their gender or any of it. It doesn’t matter. ‘I see you as a person and I love you. I love you. Thank you for being here for me. Thank you for helping me get through this very difficult time.’”

The musical follows the 1985 Héctor Babenco film, for which William Hurt won a Best Actor Oscar as Molina. That film, nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, also starred Raul Julia as Valentin and Sonia Braga as the titular Spider Woman. Like the current movie musical and a 1983 straight play, the source material is Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel.

Lopez emphasized of the film’s message, “You know that there’s something just so beautiful… that I feel that Manuel Puig intended when he first wrote the novel years ago. And now you’ve had all these iterations of ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman,’ but I feel like the message is still not done, and actually is more relevant today, with what’s going on in our world, than ever.”