After many years of dipping her toes into the more dramatic waters of filmmaking, Jennifer Lopez has returned to romantic comedies full force with the release of Marry Me. While Lopez is certainly an all-around entertainer who’s well-known for her many talents, she’s also famous for her many marriages and a near-constant string of rumors about her personal life, which have led to a number of tabloid appearances. It would be fair to say that Lopez believes she’s been through “the ringer” when it comes to the tabloids, but she was willing to put that experience into her new film.
How Does Marry Me Use Jennifer Lopez’s Personal Experience With Tabloids?
Jennifer Lopez’s Marry Me character, Kat Valdez, shares a number of similarities with the superstar, including being famous singers who are beloved the world over, and who tend to be in very high profile relationships. With that, as we know, usually comes a large amount of scrutiny any time anything happens in a celebrity’s personal life, and Kat sees a devastating moment early in the movie where she watches as she’s made fun of on national television.
As Marry Me’s director, Kat Coiro, told Insider, she and Lopez used her own memories of what it’s like to have her breakups, especially, put on blast for the entire world:
What happens when you go home and you’re alone and they are making fun of you on television, how do we get there? Jennifer has been through the ringer so this was her being generous with her real-life experiences. We talked about that scene as something that she has personally experienced, being made fun of, being taken down, people so happy to see her fall.
For those who need a refresher, Kat is preparing to marry her, also uber-famous, singing fiancé, Bastian (Maluma), in front of not just a live concert audience of thousands, but a live TV audience of millions around the world. During the show, but right before the big moment, a tabloid releases a video of Bastian cheating on Kat. This leads to her getting back on stage, and marrying a stranger, Owen Wilson’s Charlie, instead.
The aftermath of her decision sees Kat eventually back in her lush apartment, alone but for her many cleaning ladies, and sit in her bedroom while still in her wedding dress, as she watches Jimmy Fallon make fun of her romantic troubles and rash decision to wed someone she’s never met before.
Considering the number of times Lopez has seen her life picked apart in the tabloids or during talk show interviews (which led to her having to push past some fear when rekindling her romance with Ben Affleck), just having to talk about that experience was probably hard, not to mention filming the scene. Coiro said they did many takes of it, to the point where it was one of the scenes that “became even more painful than just the idea and the experience,” but noted that Lopez was on board for the journey.
And, it was well worth it, because in watching that moment, no one can doubt that Kat is hurting, or that Jennifer Lopez knows exactly how brutal that feels.
You can watch Marry Me right now, in theaters or streaming on Peacock, but for more to watch check out the other 2022 movie releases!