Classic Reissue: – JLo Tells it All (And I Do Mean ALL)

Before she was a megastar, Jennifer Lopez was a little too honest about her contemporaries.

When it was revealed that Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were, once again, engaged, the internet was curiously giddy about the news. The original flavour of Bennifer is back and we couldn’t be more excited for it, apparently. It’s certainly a contrast from how the couple were viewed the first time around: he was seen as the smarmy overexposed bro; she was dismissed as the diva who had “snatched” away the Boston boy. Now, though, they’re older, hotter, and chiller. Frankly, I think we’ve missed that brand of megastar vibrancy, the performance of fame from two people who can do it better than anyone else and aren’t interested in being “relatable” or just like everyone else. It’s a far cry from the days of the local boy done good and Jenny from the Block but I enjoyed the show, however brief it was.

Of course, it also got me thinking about Lopez’s well-played decades in the business as a Jack of All Trades who has weathered all sorts of backlash to stay at the top for all these years. So, when I think of iconic or important Lopez interviews, I think of Movieline.

It's the interview that launched a thousand beefs. If you're in any way attuned to celebrity gossip fun then you've probably read this piece a few times before. How could you not return to it repeatedly? Depending on who you ask, it's either a staggeringly misguided ego trip or a self-aware display of swagger for a star on the rise hoping to make their mark.

Movieline. "Jennifer Lopez: The Wow." February 1, 1998. Stephen Rebello.

(Read the profile here.)

In 1998, Jennifer Lopez was seen as a rising actress on the verge of A-List power. She had broken through to the big screen after dancing on In Living Color and made a major impression playing the iconic Selena in the biopic of her life. Anaconda brought box office success before she worked with major directors like Oliver Stone and Steven Soderbergh. It wasn’t hard to imagine her moving into the kind of roles that would earn her awards acclaim (she really is that good in Selena and Out of Sight.)