Jennifer Lopez Headlines Iconic Musical ‘Kiss of the Spiderwoman’

Jennifer Lopez has an impressive resume.

From her beginnings as a professional dancer on the 1990s show In Living Color to blockbuster movies like The Wedding Planner and Maid In Manhattan to her music career with number 1 hits like I’m Real and If You Had My Love, it seems she can and has done it all.

Not to mention, her foray into skin care with her namesake line JLO Beauty. She’s now headed back to her roots as she hops back into musicals. Lopez appeared at the Sundance Film Festival over the weekend to promote her recent project, Kiss of the Spiderwoman. Speaking on her opportunity to incorporate dance and song in one character is something that excites Lopez.

“I never felt in my life that I was born to play a part ever,” she said in an interview. “And I really felt that with this. Love is just love and people are just people. And for me, that resonated very deeply because of my own life and my own children. And so I really took to it so immediately and was so excited.”

Kiss of the Spiderwoman stars Lopez, who portrays the title character, also known as Ingrid Luna. It follows the story of two men imprisoned in an Argentinian jail and their journey of discovering their differences. The two prisoners are played by Diego Luna and Luis Molina. The current film is a reimagining of both the 1985 movie and 1993 stage production.

“I did [biopic] Selena years ago, but it was not my voice,” Lopez said, speaking on her role as the title character in the 1997 biopic on the late Mexican singer Selena Quintanilla. “They wanted to use her voice. I did dance a little, but there wasn’t much choreography. So this was my first musical.”

Speaking with Director Bill Condon, Lopez says, “Our proper rehearsals and learning the actual choreography was, I mean, weeks. And it was challenging. You were also very upfront about the fact that you wanted to do it like a traditional musical from the ’40s and ’50s where they would do the whole number in one shot, sing it and dance it all the way through. And, he’s like, ‘One of the reasons I want to do it is I know you can do that.’ It was very tiring, but exhilarating as well.”

The official release from the Sundance Film Festival calls Lopez a “scene-stealer” and credits this role as a “career highlight performance” for the 55-year-old.

Hollywood has dipped its toe into musical theater here and there with successful attempts at movies adapting from the stage to the screen. Chicago, starring Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2002, and Hairspray in 2007, both fared well. Remakes of West Side Story in 2021 and Cats in 2019 were more of a letdown for audiences and critics alike. However, the more recent success of Wicked in theaters could mean good things for Lopez’s project. Wicked was just nominated for 10 Academy Awards, one of which included Best Picture.