Jennifer Lopez for Complex Magazine February 2015
On whether she reads reviews about her work: "Sometimes. People send me nice stuff. Bad news, you don’t need it. I don’t go on the Internet and read comments. I’m sure everybody gets curious and does it, but I don’t. Why would I? If you want to look for something negative you’re going to find it. And the truth is the negative comments are so small compared to the love that I get."
On if it's a struggle to be 40 or over in Hollywood: "It’s not like that anymore. Look at all the actresses who are working. I remember a couple of years back every actress on the cover of the September issues was over 40, because each one of them had a big film coming out. It was me, Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, and Jennifer Aniston. That was a defining moment. The world has changed. Women maintain themselves. We live in a different time."
On getting older: "I feel great about being able to do everything that I did in my 20s better now. That’s what happens as you mature, you get better. You have more experience. And I’m proud of that. That other rhetoric, like the fairy tale rhetoric, in your mind can defeat you. And this generation of women said, “No. We have a lot to offer.” Probably more than we ever have. And it’s great for girls that are young right now to go, “I have time.” It’s a long road. And for me, I feel like mine has just begun."On if her reported request for all-white dressing rooms was real: "It wasn’t really a request from me. [Laughs.] You have managers and record company people saying, “It’s always dirty backstage in those little studios. Let’s make it nice for her.” And they’re attempting to make it nice because I was one of the hardest-working people at that time. I was literally working nonstop until I had a breakdown. In their attempt to [make things nice for me], they got me a reputation for asking for things like that. It used to bother me [but] I feel people know who I am now."
On her divorce from Marc Anthony, how it affected her deeply, especially because her parents stayed together through thick and thin for more than 30 years. For them, divorce was not an option: "They stayed together for a long time, and when they did divorce, it was shocking. But [that was] what we were taught: that you got married and stayed married. Talking about self-esteem, when my first marriage didn’t work out, my second marriage didn’t work out, and I was with Marc [Anthony] and I was trying to make it work, and that didn’t work out, it was devastating. Each time I felt like such a failure, from what I’d been taught. Those are things that grate on your self-esteem. “OK, I failed. Why can’t I make this work?” But it forces you to look at yourself in the best way possible. I’m grateful for all those trials and tribulations because with that you gain perseverance and the desire to learn and grow. So I’m happy about those experiences now. They’re painful in the moment, but now I see myself as a brave warrior princess who keeps going no matter what, and who has learned to cherish the things that matter in life, which is finding my own happiness first and then being able to share that with not just people in my life but with the world."
Photographed by Steven Gomillion
Thank you for reading
Xo MDollNYC.