She may have got her fairytale ending with husband number four, but Jennifer Lopez knows all too well that things don’t always go to plan – especially when it comes to matters of the heart.
WATCH: Jennifer Lopez’s morning skincare routine
So it certainly wasn’t a stretch for the star to play Darcy in Prime Video’s latest flick, Shotgun Wedding, about a bride-to-be whose big day ends in disaster when the extravagant destination wedding gets hijacked by criminals taking their guests hostage.
“I have done a lot of romantic comedies,” the 53-year-old recently told Gulf News of the flick, in which she stars alongside Josh Duhamel. “I liked that this had the action aspect to it. To me, that was something that was going to kind of separate it from something that I had ever done … Josh and I have that banter and fun with each other … At the core, it’s a love story with a lot of bonkers sort of action.
Stream Shotgun Wedding from January 27th Amazon Prime, live and on demand with a 30 day FREE trial. START FREE TRIAL
“We are always trying to push the envelope of what we do. Sometimes, it can all feel like the same ending and it’s expected,” Lopez continued. “For me, it’s all about how you can take [your viewers] on the journey and how many kinds of surprising, weird things you can do along the way so that people can enjoy … it’s a good ride and a good romp.”
The movie also turns the tables on the typical ‘bridezilla’ narrative that the modern-day woman has long become tired of, instead having Duhamel, 50, as the younger, wedding-crazy fiancé. In the film, it’s not Lopez’s character’s first engagement, so the novelty of having a big white wedding has understandably worn off.
“This film is very kind of modern … [it touches upon] people who wait before getting married because we are more career and goal-oriented in our lives,” Lopez explained. “There are a lot of people who are like, you know, don’t feel like the blushing bride at 20. They’re not getting married till 30 or 40, or you know, sometimes 50 years old. So it was something to be addressed in the movie because both of us are not n our 20s here. And so that kind of added a little bit of extra drama to it.”
Incidentally, the star also got another shot of wedded bliss in real life recently – tying the knot with Ben Affleck, 50, in July. And unlike her character in Shotgun Wedding, Lopez pulled out all the stops for her nuptials with the actor, even taking her new husband’s surname – a big move for a woman who became a household name almost three decades ago.
“People are still going to call me Jennifer Lopez. But my legal name will be Mrs Affleck because we’re joined together. We’re husband and wife. I’m proud of that,” she told Vogue. “I just feel like it’s romantic. It still carries tradition and romance to me, and maybe I’m just that kind of girl.”
Affleck might be the new addition, but romance has long been the star’s middle name – which should come as a surprise to few considering Lopez has pursued love across four marriages, two broken engagements and a number of high-profile relationships. However, Lopez says through it all, she has always held a candle for Affleck, whom she was previously engaged to in 2002.
“I always felt like there was a real love there, a true love there,” she told Vogue. “People in my life know that he was a very, very special person in my life. When we reconnected, those feelings for me were still very real.”
The same can be said for Affleck, who has shared that despite almost two decades passing them by, Lopez was still the same woman he fell in love with all those years ago. “There is something innately, magically kind and good and full of love at the heart of who Jennifer is,” Affleck gushed last year.
“That’s exactly the person I remember from 20 years ago. Maybe she sees all the changes she’s made, whereas when I see her, mostly I just see someone who has retained, against the odds, the thing about her that always made her the most incredible to me: a heart that seems boundless with love. She is my idea of the kind of person I want to be.”
While love is at the forefront of her personal life, it’s also been a huge part of her career in Hollywood – with her music and movies more often than not centred around romance and relationships. “My whole life, my whole music career was just about love – every movie I picked, every album I made,” Lopez previously shared.
“Even though I’m super proud of who I am today and I wouldn’t change a f–king thing – and I can finally say that, as a human being, as a woman, as a partner, as a wife, as a coworker, as a mother and stepmum – there’s just that little piece where you feel like, ‘That old me? She was sweet.’”
WATCH: Shotgun Wedding – Official Trailer 2 | Prime Video. (Article continues after video)
Despite trying her hand at a few different film genres, romantic comedies seem to fit Lopez like a glove. “Romantic comedies have already been my favourite movies, just as a moviegoer,” she has said. “They bring a sense of kind of fantasy and love and hope that is so fun to go to the movies and experience, so I’m happy to be, I think someone said, the patron saint of the romantic comedy.”
And while critics might say otherwise, most would agree that Lopez’s career is one she should be immensely proud of. “I thought I had a good work ethic, but I was completely humbled and blown away by what she was committed to doing day in and day out, the seriousness in which she took her work, the quiet and dedicated way she went about accomplishing her goals, and then how she would go back and redouble her efforts,” Affleck told Glamour of the star in 2021 – a quote which funnily enough was the catalyst for their reunion.
“She remains, to this day, the hardest-working person I’ve come across in this business. She has great talent, but she has also worked very hard for her success and I’m so happy for her that she seems, at long last, to be getting the credit she deserves.”
Stream Shotgun Wedding from January 27th Amazon Prime, live and on demand with a 30 day FREE trial. START FREE TRIAL
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
