Selena - interview with actress Jennifer Lopez - includes related article on Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla Perez - Interview

In the new movie Selena, Jennifer Lopez had the coveted - yet unenviable - task of playing the most adored Latina singer ever, the late Selena Quintanilla Perez

BARNEY HOSKYNS: Was it daunting playing Selena, given her almost saintly status in the Latino community?

JENNIFER LOPEZ: Yes, there was a lot of pressure. All the other rules I've gotten were like, you audition, you get the part, and that's it. This one was publicity-ridden from the first day. Suddenly my name was in the papers, and some people were happy and some weren't. I don't think it was personal toward me - at least I hope it wasn't. I tried to nip [the publicity] in the bud; you have to or it will get in the way of your work.

BH: How come there was such a big casting call when Gregory Nava [Selena's writer/director, who had already worked with Lopez on 1995's My Family/Mi Familia] had you right under his nose?

JL: The family wanted it that way. Abraham [Quintanilla, Jr., Selena's father] was executive producer, and he wanted to make sure he had the right person. It was a decision that went back and forth. They actually had a girl from the open call who they liked, and who looked like Selena. I do not naturally look like her, though we have similar bodies. So it was between the two of us, and for whatever reasons, they decided to go with me.

BH: Did you feel a sense of kinship with Selena's experience as a Hispanic-American?

JL: Definitely. Being Latino in this country, we're all looked at the same. They don't look at us and go, "She's Salvadoran," or, "She's Puerto Rican." I grew up in the Bronx, she grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Texas, but where she was at when she passed away . . . I know that we were going through a lot of the same things.

BH: Were you groomed early as an entertainer, as Selena was?

JL: I always knew I wanted to be a per former, and my mother started taking me to dance classes when I was five. My mother is a teacher, my father works at an insurance company. When I said I wanted to be a performer, people went, "Yeah, right." You don't do that where I come from.

BH: Did you start out as a dancer?

JL: Yes, though once I started working professionally, I realized I couldn't make a living roaming around New York with a big bag on my back, hustling, trying to get a video or a commercial. I talked to a friend of mine today who knew me in those days and he said, "You sound so much more together." And I was like, "When we were hanging out, we were straggling, and all our energy went into that straggle, you know?"

BH: Since your days as one of the Fly Girls on In Living Color, you've worked with some big directors: Francis Ford Coppola on Jack [1996], Bob Rafelson on Blood and Wine [1997], and Oliver Stone on the upcoming Stray Dogs. How does someone who never went to acting school cope with that?

JL: They have different methods, but they all give you the freedom to let you find your way. Francis is not the type to make you read the script over and over. We did a lot of improv on Jack. Oliver, of course, intimidated me at first. It was like, "If you don't have an opinion on something, you'd better get one!" But he was totally respectful and always listened to me.

BH: What was it like working with Jack Nicholson on Blood and Wine?

JL: Jack and I got along great. He was all into, you know, was I too young for him. I was like, "No! You can get a chick my age, just not me!" He would look at me and go, "You are just my kind of dish, I want a girl like you." But I wasn't giving him the vibe, like, "Oh yeah, we could be together."

BH: You met Ojani [Noa, her actor/model husband] while shooting Blood and Wine, right?

JL: Yeah, he was working in a restaurant in Miami. A lot of people, like ladies I know who work on movie sets, are like, "Why would you wanna get married now?" Everybody is so jaded about marriage these days. But my parents are still married and so are Ojani's. That's the way we were brought up, and when we met each other, we just kind of knew. I think Selena and Chris [Perez, Selena's husband] in the movie had the same love for each other. People ask me if doing the movie changed my life, and I don't know. Ojani proposed to me just when we were wrapping the film, and, when I think about it, Selena's death was a reminder of life and what it's all about and how you never know what's going to happen, and how you'd better really live for today. If I hadn't been working on this movie, I don't know if I would have said yes to Ojani.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Lost Queen of TEJANO

So who was Selena Quintanilla Perez? To the huge Mexican-American community, and to many other Latinos all over the world, she was the superstar of the poppy Tejano sound that mixes up rock, R&B, Latin cumbia rhythms, and even the polka music so popular along the Tex-Mex border. She was, moreover, about to cross over to mass America on the scale of Gloria Estefan. A mere month before her tragic and unfathomable murder (by her former fan-club president) on March 31, 1995, she packed the vast Houston Astrodome with sixty-one-thousand enraptured fans.