The Jennifer Lopez movie nobody wanted to be in: “I don’t want to force anyone”

It must be quite strange to be as famous as Jennifer Lopez.

She is in the echelon of celebrities in which there is basically not really a person on the planet who doesn’t know who you are, or has at least heard of you, and that must come with issues on a daily basis, I’d imagine. It’s probably not a surprise, then, that she tends only to fraternise with other famous people.

And that’s all well and good, until she then tries to call in a favour and get as many of them as possible to appear in a movie she’s creating, at which point you start to get some rather awkward-sounding “Um, sorry, I can’t, I’m busy” messages back.

That’s essentially what happened when J-Lo decided to make a film back in 2024 called This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, which, as you might imagine, was not some kind of searing and dramatic expose of government corruption but in fact a bizarre, overly-financed, semi-fictional accompaniment to her ninth album with a layer of special effects and romance laid on top.

What made the project even more unusual was the way it blurred the lines between music, film, and personal confession. Rather than being a traditional movie with a clear narrative, it leaned heavily into symbolism, spectacle, and emotional moments that seemed designed more for fans than for casual viewers. It was part music video, part short film, and part personal statement, which made it difficult to judge by normal cinematic standards.

Now to be fair to her, when she phoned as many of her famous mates as possible to appear in it, a lot of them answered the call and followed through, meaning that making an appearance in the finished article were luminaries including Jane Fonda, Sofia Vergara and Ben Affleck, the last of which you would imagine would have been in a world of pain had he tried to wriggle out of it.

But a considerable number of celebrities were “unavailable”, industry code for “I don’t want to do that in case it flops and makes me look bad”, including Taylor Swift, Jason Momoa, James Corden (lucky escape), Ariana Grande and Snoop Dogg.

Again, to give J-Lo some credit, she was quite magnanimous about the negative RSVPs and the whole “I’m not available” spiel, saying: “I don’t want to force anyone who doesn’t think this is going to be fun to do this. Nobody wants to say ‘no’ to me, I get that, but when an actor doesn’t like a script or is worried about it. That’s what they say. I know that. I’ve done it.”

Possibly the biggest ouch she had was the fact that in dreaming up this vanity project, she had agreed funding with a major studio, who then pulled out, leaving her with a $20million bill that she had to find herself, presumably down the back of a massive diamante-studded sofa. As if the film weren’t enough, J-Lo then also made a documentary about the making of the movie, in which she said the studio didn’t understand the direction she took and didn’t have confidence in it, which is understandable.

That decision to self-fund says a lot about how much the project meant to her. Very few artists at her level would risk that kind of money on something so personal and so hard to market. It turned the film into less of a business move and more of a statement about creative control, even if that control came with serious financial pressure.

In the end, reviews of This Is Me…Now: A Love Story weren’t anywhere near as bad as you might imagine, and the trailer alone is quite something.

Lopez has mostly focused on a return to music over the last five years or so, with the occasional movie thrown in, usually in conjunction with a major streaming site like Netflix or Prime Video. She does have a pretty big comedy coming up later this year, however, in the form of Office Romance, starring opposite Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein, who co-wrote the script with former SNL writer Joe Kelly.

Whether This Is Me…Now: A Love Story ends up being remembered as a bold creative swing or a strange side project, it does highlight something important about Lopez. Even after decades of fame, she is still willing to experiment, take risks, and put her own money behind ideas that clearly matter to her. For an artist who could easily rely on safe choices and guaranteed returns, that willingness to gamble on something deeply personal is, at the very least, interesting to watch.

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Jennifer Lopez, J Lo, Celebrity Culture, Hollywood Films, Music and Film, This Is Me Now, Pop Icons, Entertainment Industry, Celebrity Projects, Film Reviews