Feature: Maid in Manhattan

She's Got It Maid

J-Lo has earned her on-screen stripes. Now she tells us how she’s cracking the comedy coconut with her performance opposite Ralph Fiennes in the smash hit Maid in Manhattan…

Jennifer Lynn Lopez, born in the South Bronx, New York in 1970, has gone from kicking up her heels as a ‘Fly Girl’ dancer on TV’s In Living Color to enjoy an ultra-successful dual career in music and films. When asked what she got on her college entrance SAT scores, she’s rumoured to have answered “nail polish”. From an early age this daughter of a Puerto Rican kindergarten teacher and a computer technician planned to be a multi-tasking superstar and nothing was going to get in her way.

We spoke with Lopez just before Maid was released. Why would a gal who made it out of the Bronx and working service and sales jobs as a teen want to go back to her ‘roots’? Lopez claims she never really left. The hotel maid she plays in Maid in Manhattan is a hard-working single mom who wants more for herself and her family. J Lo doesn’t have a family yet but buzz has it that she and Ben want one. Maid wasn’t a big stretch for ‘Jenny from the Block’ who has lived her own Cinderella story. Does she think film-goers in 2003 are too cynical for a fairytale romance? “No. It would be a sad day if that were true I think. I think fairy tales are forever. I’d be very sad if this was the year for no fairy tales”.

When shooting the film in Yonkers, Jennifer had a strange, déjà vu experience that was quickly snuffed out when her celebrity became more than apparent. “On the streets there were a lot of people around. Sometimes I’d look around and think to myself, ‘Oh, God. I wonder what these people are doing?’ It takes a lot of concentration to just block out the movie crew, but to block out people who are screaming out your name is more challenging.”

She is in the public eye constantly. Ralph Fiennes plays a politician in the film and Jennifer laughed about the tables being turned for a change. “My favourite line in the movie is: ‘I don’t know how you deal with these cameras all the time, I just couldn’t do it!’” She laughs. “Did I even say that convincingly? I’m not sure.” Living under a microscope is increasingly harder, especially since the star has linked herself with another hot actor. Jen and Ben have to take this in their stride. “I just see it as part of the job now. I think everybody has parts of their job they love and parts they don’t like. The long hours, sacrificing the relationships with your family, the media/paparazzi thing. You give up a certain amount of privacy when you do this for a living. You accept that it is part of the whole thing and not let it change you.”

by Lynn Barker

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Film Review Special #44

Photo © Sony Pictures
Feature © Visual Imagination 2003. Not for reproduction

Taken from

Film Review Special #44
Comedy Films (Lopez) 2003
ships from Feb 13 2003
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UK £4.99 / US $11.99

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