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MOVIE FEATURE

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The voluminous rose-gold wedding dress worn by JLo’s character is almost a supporting player itself. “To find a dress for Jennifer that is almost as big a presence as she is was a challenge,” says costume designer Caroline Duncan. “We wanted to find a dress that was large -than-life, really romantic, but also couture – not a dress that anyone has ever seen the likes of.” “The dress was a knockout but very uncomfortable for me to wear on the four days that we shot those scenes,” recalls Lopez. “It was so tight on me!”

Art imitates life for Jennifer Lopez in the new romantic-comedy, Marry Me . Words Gill Pringle

P laying a famous pop star whose high- profile engagement explodes in a very public way was the toughest role of Jennifer Lopez’s career. No stranger to such a scenario, Lopez’s own engagement to Ben Affleck in 2002 lasted but a year before likewise imploding, although the former sweethearts have since rekindled their romance and recently announced their second engagement on Instagram. In a case of art echoing life, the multi- hyphenate actress and singer says of her role as pop diva Kat Valdez in Marry Me , “It was about baring my soul in every moment. It was more uncomfortable than playing a character that is nothing like you, because I brought experience into a world in a way that I’ve never had to before.”

playing out in the unforgiving spotlight of social media, Lopez understands the trope. “This wasn’t a role where I had to research what it was like to be a famous recording artist who does branding and all of this. I think the difficult part was the meta part – the idea of showing what it’s really like inside my bedroom when something goes wrong and you suffer a heartbreak like this in front of the whole world, and the media kind of goes to town on you,” she says of her Kat Valdez alter-ego who, in an effort to save face, spontaneously marries Owen Wilson’s high school math teacher, Charlie, before a multi-million global audience. “I wanted to unearth the story and understand it and poke fun at it in that way, and what that really feels like. There were a lot of moments where I was able to bring a truth to the character and the emotional life that was really authentic.”

the role of social media in projecting a public persona. “It used to be just the tabloids or the press and now its social media as well, which can be just as – if not more – anxiety provoking for people in the public eye. But I think that’s what makes this film also a little bit more modern, in that you have that element of exploring what it’s like to have that heartbreak and huge embarrassment in front of the world and how it travels so quickly. “Navigating that as a person in the public eye can be tricky, especially when difficult things happen in your life, like Kat suffers in the beginning of this movie, which I don’t wish on anybody,” she adds, speaking from bitter personal experience. In Marry Me , Lopez’s character is engaged to Latin sensation “Bastian”, portrayed by Colombian superstar Maluma ( Encanto ). But when she discovers, just seconds before her

Lopez has learned the hard way how to survive in the public eye. “You have to stay focused on who you really are rather than on how the public views you,” she tells STACK . “Kat never forgets she was a little girl growing up with a dream. It’s the same for me. Remembering where I came from has always kept me grounded. I don’t feel any different... I’m still the same person, but I’m just doing these things with my life and it has expanded and grown. Still, there’s a human being there.” With Kat’s humiliation

With some 194 million Instagram followers, Lopez fully understands

wedding, that he has been unfaithful to her, the façade and the fantasy of her life disintegrates around her. “In one second, everything changes, and it all falls apart,” she says. “Kat blames herself for not seeing the truth, but also makes a spontaneous choice to marry somebody else in the audience. That’s how she meets Charlie. With that, her life completely changes, as it does when you meet someone who sees you for who you are.”

• Marry Me is out on May 4

12 MAY 2022

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