Jennifer Lopez is getting real and vulnerable with her new album, This Is Me… Now, and the accompanying musical cinematic experience.
Lopez walked the red carpet at the premiere of This Is Me… Now: A Love Story at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood on Tuesday, where she spoke with ET’s Kevin Frazier about the emotional story that unfolds in the unique cinematic project.
“The album that I made was very honest, about kind of wanting to capture this moment in time of reconnecting with a love,” said Lopez, who’s project tells a fictionalized version of her rekindled romance and marriage to Ben Affleck. “It seems like a fairytale, but it really wasn’t. And so I really wanted to tell that part of the story — the real story, in a way, but not my autobiographical story.”
According to Lopez, she and director/co-writer Dave Meyers “come up with the idea of telling the story of a hopeless romantic who kind of is going through her life’s journey in her search for love, and what it means and what it’s about.”
Lopez showed This Is Me… Now: A Love Story to her 15-year-old twins — daughter Emme and son Max, who she shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony — and explained to them how the project explores a version of real events that blend truth and fictional narrative.
“I was talking to my kids about this, and then they’re like, ‘Which parts are real and which parts are not?’ And I said, ‘You will think some parts are real, that are not. And then some parts you don’t think are real, are real,'” Lopez recalled. “But it is inspired by a lot of the things I went through and it’s really about what it has been for me to be a hopeless romantic my whole life, and some of the pitfalls of that.”
For Lopez, it was “kind of exciting and terrifying to explore all of it” in such a public and open space. “But for the first time, I felt really compelled to do something that wasn’t about anything except wanting to do something, like art for art’s sake, and that’s why I did it myself,” she added.
Lopez walked the carpet on Tuesday with her handsome husband, and the pair smoldered for cameras as they stood side-by-side.
Steve Granitz/FilmMagic
Recently, Lopez and Affleck shared scenes together in a viral Super Bowl commercial for Dunkin’ in which the Oscar-winning actor tries to impress Lopez with some boyband dance moves — alongside a slew of his famous friends, including Matt Damon, Tom Brady, Jack Harlow, Charli D’Amelio and Fat Joe.
According to Lopez, the project was shaped largely by her husband — including the A-list cameos.
“That’s the genius that is Ben Affleck,” Lopez marveled. “It has nothing to do with me. Whatever he asks me to do, I’m like, ‘Yeah, Ok, sure, I’ll be there.'”
“We have some amazing outtakes from that whole entire shoot,” she added. “We had so much fun with Matt, Tom everybody! I had all the guys who helped make my album, they were in the studio. It was all very real and authentic in a way, but a lot of fun.”
This Is Me… Now: A Love Story premieres on Prime Video on Feb. 16, alongside the release of her ninth studio album, This Is Me… Now.
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