Jennifer Lopez: The Glory and the Dream (and the Drive) | Cowl Story

Jennifer Lopez apologizes for being late. She explains that she’s been “working round with all of the issues.”

We’re doing our interview quarantine-style, and when Lopez pixelates into view, she’s sitting in what I assume is her front room. Her hair is pulled up right into a restrained topknot, her brows as angled as weaponry, her posture as shaped as a ballerina’s. Hers is the type of huge, tasteful front room (one she shares with fiancé Alex Rodriguez) that makes for good turn-page artwork in Architectural Digest — just like the time it was, in actual fact, in Architectural Digest. Behind her hangs a four-foot- (five-foot?) tall Keith Haring.

“All of the issues” looks like a very good clarification for her life. All of the issues fairly nicely sums up the commonwealth often known as Jennifer Lopez. Take over 30 films, 40- one thing singles, eight studio albums, just a few a long time as probably the most iconic folks on the earth, throw in some fragrances and a Tremendous Bowl, plus youngsters and a canine… and also you’ve written the structure of this explicit commonwealth. Her nationwide profile couldn’t appear to get any larger, however one way or the other did when she was invited to carry out on the Biden/Harris inauguration in January — a uncommon honor.

Final November, Lopez dropped a brand new single referred to as “Within the Morning,” and for the only’s cowl artwork she used the identical wardrobe designer as new child infants, Botticelli’s Venus, and Eve within the early years. In Could, Marry Me, her newest romantic comedy (for which she additionally did the music), costarring Owen Wilson, might be launched. And never way back, she gave the world JLo Magnificence — a skin-care line that hinges on the concept that a dreamy complexion may be obtained by way of the powers of olive oil and sunscreen. That JLo Glow is the title of the road’s hero product and it is likely to be the best advertising and marketing job since fireplace offered us warmth.

“All of the issues” is beginning to really feel like an understatement. “Since I used to be little, I used to be an overachiever,” she says. “All you needed to do was inform me what to do. I took course rather well after which I crushed it. That was my character.”

Being a lion on the popular culture meals chain has been Lopez’s defining attribute since we’ve identified her. However she will not be the identical individual she was within the 1990s. None of us are, in fact. We’ve modified. The world has modified. The distinction in Lopez’s case is that she had a hand in altering it. Like Attract, which additionally got here of age within the 1990s, Lopez has formed the best way we determine magnificence and the way we eat it. (That is her fourth Attract cowl.)

“After I got here on the scene, it was type of the time of the waif and everyone needed to be stick skinny,” she says. “It was like, ‘Nicely, you’re not. How do you are feeling?’ I’m like, ‘I really feel nice about it!’” At present, that magnificence commonplace has been excised from our minds like a melanoma. Was that thanks totally to Lopez? No. However she did push the needle of magnificence ahead — towards totally different physique varieties, totally different pores and skin tones, totally different definitions — by the sheer pressure of her will and expertise. In any case, the waifs are gone. Lopez, clearly, will not be.

Lopez, who turns 52 this 12 months, carried out eventually 12 months’s Tremendous Bowl. (Bear in mind February 2020? That was a 12 months in the past.) You could possibly name it the Lopez Tremendous Bowl. As a result of you could not bear in mind the rating, you may not even recall who performed, however you rattling nicely know that the star of the halftime present was 50. “The Tremendous Bowl was actually about exhibiting what I may do to an even bigger, broader viewers than ever,” she says. By my estimation her viewers has at all times been larger than ever.

“It’s such an enormous platform and so many individuals all over the world are watching, and a few of them have by no means freaking heard of you, you already know what I imply?”

Nicely, no. Most individuals have by no means heard of me.

“The concept was to indicate the very best of, not simply myself as an artist, however the very best of girls,” Lopez explains. “The perfect of Latinos. I felt that I represented Latinos, I represented ladies, and I represented folks in my age group in a light-weight that was very optimistic and robust.” It was a second of age transcendence. I don’t know if she got down to tear down partitions in her life, however you possibly can’t deny that Lopez was not one of the issues she was “supposed” to be and but has gotten precisely what she wished.

The principles have been clear. Younger? Skinny? White, with indicators of affluence? Please, stroll proper in and make your self at residence. Everybody else, take a quantity and STFU. Then, over the previous couple of years, the collective acutely aware shook itself awake, mortified by the way it had behaved on the social gathering final evening — solely the social gathering had lasted for generations.

“I do really feel it’s totally different now,” Lopez says, including that it will likely be higher for her kids’s era; that we’re nearer to a extra inclusive thought of what magnificence means. “However our era continues to be coping with the scars.”

Change, significant change, was within the air. Issues have been wanting hopeful. After which got here the pandemic.

What occurred to somebody like Lopez when the world floor to a halt? Did she purchase sweatpants and have a tendency to her sourdough starter like the remainder of us who’re fortunate sufficient to shelter at residence? “I imply, the primary half was like, ‘Wow, that is totally different,’” she says. “I feel all of us have been full of anxiousness. We have been within the Twilight Zone, like everyone else.” “We,” on this case, means Lopez, her fiancé and former Yankees slugger Rodriguez, her 12-year-old twins (their father is Marc Anthony), and Rodriguez’s two daughters. “I began making an attempt to do issues collectively. We’d play base- ball outdoors or paint collectively,” Lopez says. “We by no means get to do stuff like that. I used to be making an attempt to benefit from the time.”

Quarantine, it seems — even if you’re somebody with homes (plural) and, presumably, entry to a non-public aircraft and folks to do stuff for you — continues to be quarantine. There comes a degree, talking for Lopez and the remainder of humanity right here, when you’ll really feel like a canine who wants a stroll.

“I miss being inventive and working on 150,” says Lopez. “However Alex, of all folks, was like, ‘I like it. I really like being at residence. I really like doing my Zooms. I really like realizing the youngsters are there, and also you’re there on a regular basis.’ It has been truly actually good. We set to work on ourselves. We did remedy. I feel it was actually useful for us in our relationship.”

Lopez and Rodriguez have been within the strategy of planning their marriage ceremony when coronavirus despatched the Earth skidding off its axis. “It was a giant deal,” she says, unsurprisingly, of the marriage. “We had been planning for months and months and months, and it was abroad.” The best way she says “abroad” makes me image her strolling down the aisle of Buckingham Palace. Or a minimum of, like, Hogwarts.

“Possibly that wasn’t the correct time,” she says. “You begin considering of all of these items — how every part has its type of excellent, divine second.”

Divine moments and grand events are one factor, however I can’t assist questioning: Does Lopez ever sit on the couch and eat potato chips? “I do!” That is stated with a fervor I consider. “I do sit on the sofa and eat potato chips! The factor is to not get too used to it, as a result of it’s really easy and so enjoyable.”

Resisting potato chips takes self-discipline, and self-discipline is probably the one fixed theme in Lopez’s life: She is a famously onerous employee. Take her life the 12 months earlier than the pandemic, for instance: “I began coaching for Hustlers in January 2019. I went from coaching for Hustlers to doing Hustlers to occurring a tour to doing awards season whereas filming Marry Me. I bear in mind filming all day and dealing on the music in my trailer after which doing interviews after which being on the cellphone with my youngsters as a result of that they had simply entered center college. I bear in mind being on the cellphone with Emme, telling her to do two hours of homework, after which getting on with Max and placing him to sleep after which studying my strains for the following day. Then coaching for Tremendous Bowl rehearsals. After which it was the Tremendous Bowl.” She continues, “It was nonstop for a 12 months So, after that, I used to be like, ‘I’m going to relaxation. For a month.’”

Should you’re Jennifer Lopez, you be taught lots about your self when there’s no crowd to play with, no viewers of tens of millions. To somebody who has been performing her entire life, an adoring public is sustenance. “Levels are the place I really feel probably the most comfy,” she says. “I don’t like speaking or doing speeches, however to sing and dance or to behave? Come right here, child. That’s what I do.”

I ask her one thing I’ve at all times wished to: She crushed Hustlers, in a thong, at age 50. Why comply with it up with the Tremendous Bowl slash recording an album whereas singing a lullaby and serving to with math homework? Why push herself like that? The place does that drive come from and what’s the tip aim? Relevance? Glory? Immortality?

“Should you work onerous, you possibly can accomplish one thing,” she says. “You possibly can win the medal.”

“However you gained the medal,” I say. She gained all of the medals! There are not any medals left. Trophy shops need to go to her! Okay, advantageous, so there may be that one medal she was very a lot not nominated for final 12 months.

“I used to be speaking about this the opposite day. [My production partner] Elaine [Goldsmith-Thomas] made a submit the place she listed all of the issues I had been nominated for and gained that season,” says Lopez, referring to the post-Hustlers awards season. “And when it got here to the Oscars, it was so clearly absent. It was a sting.”

“I used to be like, ‘Okay, if you’re supposedly in everyone else’s thoughts presupposed to be nominated and also you’re not, what does that imply? Is it actually actual? Are the opposite ones actual and this one isn’t?’ It got here to some extent the place I used to be like, ‘This isn’t why I do that. I don’t do that to have 10 Oscars sitting on my mantel or 20 Grammys.’”

Who amongst us doesn’t know this ego-id, death-cage match? One facet is saying, “It’s concerning the work, it’s concerning the work, it’s concerning the work.” And the opposite facet comes again with, “Oh, would you please shut the fuck up as a result of this completely sucks.” The elixir of glory and awards is highly effective; it’s additionally fleeting. It retains emptying. So we preserve filling it. And on we go.

“The purpose is creating and the enjoyment that I get from the issues I get to place out on the earth that entertain and encourage and empower folks,” Lopez says. “I feel my life is about greater than awards.”

Final June, Lopez and Rodriguez joined tens of millions of others and marched in what can be one of many largest civil rights actions the world has ever identified. It was, in a way, the fruits of the change she has been part of for thus a few years: The necessity for us to see the sweetness and humanity in each other.

“The entire thing that was taking place with police brutality, the Black Lives Matter motion, Latinos on the border — you are feeling such as you needed to contribute,” she says. “I bear in mind my son coming to me and saying, ‘, Mother, a few of my YouTubers inform us what we must always do, and I take heed to them. You might have lots of people that really feel that approach about you.’ It was his approach of claiming that I ought to do one thing. He most likely heard me complaining about what was taking place on the earth. I stated, ‘I need you guys to make me the indicators as a result of Mommy desires to get on the market too.’”

Like so many different issues in life, protesting is totally different in the event you’re J.Lo. “I’m not used to being in large crowds like that — I’m at all times on the stage. [My life is] automotive to again door to safety to this to that. It was scary. I acquired a little bit anxiousness, like, ‘How do you get out of the gang?’” she says. “As soon as I acquired [into it], to be within the plenty like that, I cherished it. Like, ‘Wow, there’s a motion taking place.’ So many individuals, totally different ages, races — it was a wonderful factor.”

For all of the horrors of 2020, it additionally introduced some profound moments of magnificence — snapshots of selflessness and love, engagement, and compassion. When tragedy got here to the foreground time and again, so did our humanity. The Earth stopped vibrating with visitors and the air cleared. Total cities stood in applause at 7 p.m. And when justice was suffocated to dying, we Sharpie’d phrases from america Structure onto items of corrugated cardboard, took to the streets, and marched for righteousness.

“We are able to’t simply preserve residing our lives and considering every part’s going to work itself out,” Lopez says. “No, it’s not going to work out. We have now to become involved. We have now to make adjustments. That was why 2020, as troublesome and scary because it was, was so vital. What we realized is that we’re all on this collectively. That is about our children rising up in a world the place they really feel comfy, the place issues are equal, and there’s extra kindness and love than hate and division.”

“In the midst of the pandemic,” Lopez remembers, “[my daughter] Emme got here to me crying. She was like, ‘Why is all this taking place?’ It was such an emotional factor as a result of I used to be making an attempt to consolation her and myself in the identical second.” She provides what might be a theme of the Lopez we have now identified for thus lengthy: “I stated, ‘There’s one thing happen- ing that we’re in the course of and you need to belief that on the opposite facet it’s going to be so significantly better. We simply have to hold on.’”

Photographer: Daniella Midenge

Style stylist: Nicola Formichetti

Hair: Chris Appleton

Make-up: Mary Phillips

Set design: Evan Jourden

Nails: Tom Bachik

Manufacturing: Viewfinders