Jennifer Lopez realised musical dream with Kiss of the Spider Woman role
Jennifer Lopez has spent her entire acting career waiting for a musical role like 'Kiss of the Spider Woman'.
Jennifer Lopez has waited her whole life for a role like 'Kiss of the Spider Woman'.
The 55-year-old star plays the lead character in the new musical drama film and revealed that it helped her fulfil her dream of starring in an old-school musical movie.
Lopez told Variety: "I was waiting my whole life to be able to do a real big MGM Hollywood musical, and I finally got to do it.
"It was more (than I hoped). Me and Diego (Luna) were on set and we're dancing around and we're singing and looking at each other and it's like we don't want to do anything but musicals. Diego said that! Me too. I don't want to do anything else."
'Kiss of the Spider Woman' is an adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical of the same name and is set in an Argentinean prison in 1981.
Lopez plays a fantasy woman called Ingrid Luna, who is created by gay hairdresser Luis Molina as he serves an eight-year sentence for the alleged corruption of a minor.
To escape the horror of imprisonment, Molina imagines classic movies starring Luna – including the role of the spider woman who kills her prey with a kiss.
His life is transformed when he is joined in his cell by a Marxist, Valentin Arregui Paz, as the pair forge an unlikely bond.
Lopez believes the picture serves as a reminder "that love heals all divides".
The 'Unstoppable' actress said: "It's about two different people who come together and find the humanity in one another and fall in love. To me, that is something that is special and needs to be seen. We are all just human. It's an important movie in this way."
The 1985 adaptation of 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' saw the late William Hurt win the Oscar for Best Actor and Lopez hopes that the new movie – which Bill Condon has directed - can be bestowed with similar awards success.
She said: "Of course, I would love it to get the recognition that I believe it deserves."
The 'Marry Me' star added: "Bill wrote a script that for the first time in my life I was in bed reading it and I started saying it out loud. Saying the lines and laughing and crying.
"This is what I've been waiting for my whole life. This is all I've ever wanted to do.
"I got into movies because of 'West Side Story'. I thought I was going to do Broadway. I wanted to do movies but I didn't even think about records. I wanted to do musicals. I love musicals. My kids love musicals. My mother did.
"It was a dream fulfilled in having done the movie."
