Face-to-face with J. Lo

Around Thanksgiving last year, I was in New York to meet the Queen, her beautiful highness, J. Lo. Thank you to Columbia Pictures for that wonderful opportunity. When my friend Doris Torres of Columbia called to ask me if I would be interested to interview Jennifer Lopez, I said I would adjust the inter-planetary alignment to fix my out-of-this- world schedule because there was no way I would miss the chance to get one foot near the great "behind". And lo and behold, J. Lo was more than just the famous "behind" – she was stunning, smart and "silly". "You realize that with my five minute conversation with you, I wouldn’t have enough time to form a fairly solid opinion about J. Lo. But when I get home to the Philippines people will ask me, what is J. Lo like in person. What do you want me to say? I asked. "Silly" – she quipped. "But gorgeous and beautiful," she laughed in wild abandon.

What a journey it has been for Jennifer Lopez. In her early years in the biz, the size and shape of her backside got more attention than her talent. So powerful was her behind that it created a cult following who flocked to surgeons around the world asking doctors to sculpt a derriere like J. Lo’s.

Jennifer Lopez was born in the Bronx, in a section called "castle hill". To get to the heart of New York City, one had to take the six train from where she lived. J. Lo called her first album On the Six. At one point, Jennifer was known in Latin and Spanish circles as La Guitara because of the shape of her body.

The young Jennifer wanted to be a famous actress. From the Bronx, she moved to Manhattan and became a dancer. She became one of the back-up dancers of Janet Jackson on her concert tours and music videos.

Jennifer’s big break came when she played Latin singing sensation, Selena, who was shot to death by one of her fans. It was reported that J. Lo was paid over a million dollars for this movie, making her one of the highest-paid Latin actresses of her time. Then she did movies like Anaconda, U-Turn, Out of Sight, The Cell, The Wedding Planner and Angel Eyes. It was in Oliver Stone’s U-Turn, where hard-nosed critics noticed J. Lo’s acting abilities while Out of Sight made her a formidable name in Hollywood.

On the recording scene, her first album went multi-platinum, spawning chart-busting singles and much-coveted Grammy nominations.

Then came Maid in Manhattan, a romantic-comedy where J. Lo plays Marisa, a hard-working housekeeper in a first-class hotel in Manhattan. She is also a doting single mother to a 10-year-old boy. In the hotel, she falls for a young politician, who mistakenly believes she is a socialite guest of the hotel.

"Marisa’s journey in this film is finding a balance in her life, between doing what’s good for her and her son and realizing that it’s okay to want more and to go after it. She is a strong woman who has made her own way in the world, while still managing to hang on to her family and friends. Then she finds the kind of love that doesn’t come around everyday and it throws her into a tailspin. It’s very funny and real at the same time," Jennifer Lopez described her role in the movie.

During my brief conversation with J. Lo held in one of the suites of The Mark Hotel (a stone’s throw away from Central Park) she also talked about Chris Judd, her second husband, whose Filipino mother would cook lumpia for them. Chris is a dancer. The funny thing was that we were advised not to ask personal questions as her publicists would be present and questions about anything personal would give them an excuse to terminate the interview.

The first snowfall happened during this time in New York City – a few days before Thanksgiving and the famed Macy’s Parade. J. Lo was also on the cover of the major international magazines. Tabloids had her on the front pages and all sorts of stories flew around the world – particularly about her engagement to gorgeous Ben Affleck. I was particularly warned not to ask about the controversial engagement ring Ben gave her.

Just before the cameras rolled for our quick conversation she was talking to her trusted make-up artist (who carried a foot-long brush he used to apply make-up on her face, breast, arms, like a painter splashing colors on a canvass with a gargantuan brush) about her mother’s interview on the Lifestyle channel. I even heard her ask the make-up artist how Ben reacted to it. And then she looked at me and blurted out, "You know how it is. You can’t tell your mom what to say. And boy, she’s enjoying these interviews. And I don’t think she cares what Ben has to say."

Then a voice announced that my five-minute interview had started. And God knows how much I wanted to ask J. Lo about Ben Affleck and the controversial engagement ring. But I decided to stick to the rules. After the interview, I figured that if I asked her about the "forbidden" questions, she would have answered them anyway – after all J. Lo knows what it is like to break little rules to survive in places like the Bronx and showbiz.

Thank God she talked about lumpia and her half-Filipino ex-husband. And thank God Maid in Manhattan is a fabulous movie. Go see it. It will make you laugh and cry. And Jennifer Lopez is still unapologetic about her powerful "behind". As a matter of fact, she flaunts it in the film.

(Maid in Manhattan opens today in theaters in Metro Manila and major cities of the Philippines. It also stars Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Bob Hoskins. Director is Wayne Wang of the Joy Luck Club fame.)