Jennifer Lopez’s career-long quest to star in a musical: “It just wasn’t the right time”
A Hollywood musical wasn’t a curveball in Jennifer Lopez’s career; it was the plan all along. But even with her triple-threat status and A-list shine, the journey took decades. Now, in Kiss of the Spider Woman, premiering at Sundance under the direction of Bill Condon, Jennifer Lopez is finally stepping into the spotlight she’s been chasing since childhood.
“I remember auditioning for Evita, I remember auditioning for Chicago and for Nine—getting very close on Nine,” Lopez told The Hollywood Reporter, glittering in a spiderweb gown by Valdrin Sahiti at the film’s premiere. “There was a lot of things that I had always hoped that I could do, and it just wasn’t the right time. But this is the right thing.”
The singer recalls more the roles she didn’t land, lying in wait for the perfect opportunity. She recalled a young version of herself who believed the genre would define her path, growing up singing songs from musicals with her sisters, dreaming of Broadway and not blockbusters. “That’s what made me want to be a singer and an actor and a dancer,” she said, “I honestly thought I was going to go on to Broadway…then I got sent out to Hollywood and the rest is kind of history.”
The history she refers to includes Selena, Out of Sight, a pop career that reshaped early-2000s radio (bonus points if you possessed a HitClip of the song ‘Jenny from the Block’ as a kid), and a romantic comedy legacy so solid it could be taught in film schools. She’s even had the power to turn down an Oscar-nominated role. But musicals, despite her natural alignment with the genre, eluded her.
Kiss of the Spider Woman adapts for the screen the 1993 Broadway musical born from Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel and the 1985 Brazilian film adaptation. The plot follows two cellmates, one a revolutionary, played by Diego Luna, the other a queer window dresser, played by Tonatiuh, who passes time by recounting a dazzling film-within-a-film starring his idol, Ingrid Luna, played by Jennifer Lopez. That role, plus the titular ‘Spider Woman’, gives Lopez not just a part but a prism through which to finally showcase every facet of her artistry.
It’s not your average musical, either. Bill Condon, who penned Chicago and clearly knows his way around a stage-to-screen transition, built the role specifically for Jennifer Lopez, and unearthed a lost Kander and Ebb track, ‘Never You’, for her to perform. “I thought they had written this specifically for Kiss of the Spider Woman, but what he did was a deep dive into all the Kander and Ebb songs that they wrote that had never been heard and never been used,” Lopez explained, adding, “It was my favourite song. Oh my God, it’s such a beautiful song.”
Recording it became a full-circle moment. “Kander was sitting there—he is 97 years old—and he was just in tears listening to me sing,” Lopez said, “I couldn’t believe my life at that moment. It was a dream.” Condon, too, felt the emotional weight. “It’s a little bittersweet because you think, why have we been robbed of 25 years of Jennifer Lopez musicals?” he said, noting, “but I don’t think she has anything to prove after this.”
Indeed, if Spider Woman is any indication, Lopez has arrived right on cue. The genre may ebb and flow, but she’s hit her mark with impeccable timing. And a voice that was always meant to be heard on a stage.
