She toppled Lady Gaga as Forbes Magazine’s Most Powerful Celebrity this year. She has sold more than 70 million albums worldwide and is reportedly worth more than US$150 million. Yet for Jennifer Lopez, a moment shared with a fan in a hotel lobby exemplifies her career success.
He told her he’d first met her when he was 15. At 26, he was still a fan and still excited to see her perform. “To me, that’s an amazing accomplishment in this business,” says Lopez, on the line from Stockholm, one of the numerous stops on her Dance Again world tour. “To be around and to continue to do what you love doing.”
It’s a telling choice for Lopez. In 2001, she had exploded onto the scene. Her second album J Lo, featuring Love Don’t Cost AThing, debuted at number one on the US Billboard charts in the same week The Wedding Planner, her film with Matthew McConaughey, opened as the number one film in the US. It was a first for any female performer. That Versace Jungle dress had made an indelible imprint on pop culture, her curves had sparked a celebration of womanliness and her record-breaking Glow, the first of 17 fragrances to come, had just been launched. Jennifer Lopez was everywhere.
Looking back now, she says she didn’t set out to be a groundbreaker. “I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the best performer I could be, the best actress I could be, but I didn’t think about groundbreaking.” She pauses for a moment. “Or did I? I don’t know. I think I was more focused on doing whatever I was doing well and trying to get better.”
Since then, there have been highs – five more studio albums and the arrival of her much adored twins Max and Emme – and lows – Bennifer, Gigli and the breakdown of her marriage to her children’s father, Marc Anthony – but Lopez is still doing what she does best.
Her passion is what keeps her motivated. “I love what I do and I want to keep doing it,” she says. “I love singing and I love acting and I love dancing and performing and I love creating, and I just stay motivated because I love it.”
She’s definitely on a high now. After a much-applauded turn on American Idol as the warm, constructive judge for two seasons, she has a new hit album Love?, featuring her biggest single in eight years, On the Floor, and fans are flocking to the Dance Again tour.
Interestingly it’s her first major world tour.That very full roster has kept her from attempting it before. “It’s always been hard to take out all the time that it takes to actually do a tour properly and to actually go around the world.” One of the stops will be Australia, which she’s looking forward to.“That’s the thing about touring – you go around the world and it’s always new because the audience is always different and so I’m anxious to get over there and see what it’s like.”
“I wanted to be the best…
I was focused on doing whatever
I was doing well
and trying to get better.”
Her fans had been petitioning her for a major tour for some time, often telling her directly through Twitter and Facebook. “Probably the number one question I was always asked [was] when are you going on tour.” Lopez has embraced social media, considering it fun. She often replies directly and shares snapshots of her life, like the recent pictures of her and boyfriend Casper Smart dressed up as peace-loving hippies for Halloween on the road in Dusseldorf. She was also unabashed about an online PDA with Smart on their one-year anniversary with his and hers tweets, although, interestingly, hers disappeared not long after.
The twins are also on tour with her and have been since it began in June, with brief breaks for visits with their father. Having them along allows her to see the world through their eyes, she says. “It’s like seeing everything for the first time again. I’ve been to a lot of these places before but I’ve seen a lot of things for the first time with them as well.”They’ve had a similar impact on the rest of her life. “They make you look at the world with a different perspective. Everything is really put into place – priority-wise it makes it super-easy. But they also [remind] you not to take yourself too seriously.”
This year also promises a return to form for her at the box office. She’ll star in Parker, directed by Taylor Hackford (Ray, Proof of Life, Dolores Clairborne, An Officer and a Gentleman) and opposite action star Jason Statham (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Expendables). It echoes her steaming hit Out of Sight, which paired her with George Clooney, with the tale of the good-hearted thief (Statham) who teams up with a play-it-straight real estate agent (Lopez). It’s fast-paced fun, with Lopez adding sass to the testosterone-fuelled caper. There’s more than a note of envy when I ask her about the action in the film. “I love action; I wish I could have done more in that movie.”
Hackford and Lopez met early in her career and have wanted to work together ever since. She’s a big admirer. “His track record speaks for itself.” After watching her on Idol, he knew she was the right one for this role. “One of the things that it made him realise is that the character had, [and] that I had innately, was that she never gives up. Even when things get hard, she doesn’t give up and because of that, he felt like I had that quality.”
“But they also [remind] you
not to take yourself
too seriously.”
That tenacity is perhaps her most defining characteristic. Her definition of success, for example, is illuminating. “Being happy in what you are doing and being proud of yourself and doing the right thing, that to me is success,” she says. “A successful life is a happy life, a peaceful life, an exciting life, but also a life where you feel in line with your own integrity.”
And for her it also means giving back. Not long after the birth of her twins, Lopez set up the Lopez Family Foundation with her sister Lynda. The humanitarian organisation focuses on health and education for women and children. “You can’t be in a position like I’m in where you feel so blessed and so grateful, and then not try to help where you feel help is needed. I just think any human being would feel that way and I certainly do.”
I manage to squeeze in one last question before she has to dash off for the next item on that mighty to-do list. At 43, Lopez looks ridiculously good – so what are the secrets to ageing well? “I don’t have any secrets,” she says with that unmistakeable laugh. “I think it’s about being true to yourself, feeling good in your own skin and doing things that you are proud of.” She’s walking talking proof that it’s a pretty successful formula.
Published in Vogue Australia January 2013
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