Jennifer Lopezis the star who can do it all: sing, act, dance — but the mogul revealed she didn’t always have the confidence that her fans see on stage.
The film centers on 40-year-old Maya who struggles with unfulfilled dreams and gets a chance to make them come true when she lands a job at an elite company and slowly learns to believe in herself.
“You know, I’ve really become — and I think from being in this business, I don’t let the opinion of others really influence how I think about myself,” Lopez told the event’s moderator, Full Picture CEO Desiree Gruber. “And that took a long time. Because in the early party of my career, I did, and it made me feel really bad about myself.”
While the singer and actress was experiencing massive success with her debut filmSelenaand her debut albumOn the 6, Lopez said she received criticism that made her doubt her talents.
“I’m killing it, and then everybody’s like, ‘She can’t sing, she can’t dance, she can’t act, she’s just some pretty face or her butt is big’ or whatever they were saying about me and I started thinking, ‘Yeah, that’s true,'” she recalled. “And it really hurt me for a long time.”
Despite feeling down about the backlash, Lopez she “just kept going.”
Kristina Bumphrey/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock
“I just couldn’t allow myself to let that become who I was. I was like, ‘No, I’m gonna make another record, I’m gonna make another song, I’m gonna make another movie,'” she shared. “‘I’m a great actress, I’m a great singer, a great dancer, I’m great at this stuff! And I’m gonna keep going!’ And I did. And that’s all I did. I just kept going. And I just started working harder and harder than everybody else.”
“I started believing in myself,” she added. “I started believing in the fact that I wasn’t an imposter, that I wasn’t a fake.”
Believing in yourself is exactly what her film is about, Lopez shared.
“It’s just like the movie, like Maya, like her thinking that this is a mistake that she made when she was young, that she didn’t deserve any better for her life,” the star said.
Growing up in the Bronx, there was a time where Lopez believed she would become a bank teller at the local bank just down the street from her home.
“Citibank was like down the block from my house and I thought, maybe I’ll work at the bank and it’ll be close to my house and there were moments when I was in school that I thought about that,” theMaid in Manhattanstar said. “New York is so symbolic for me. I always felt like this little girl, with her nose pressed up against the glass looking at the Emerald City and all the stuff that was out there, but the Bronx seems so small. Like that was gonna be my whole life.”
RELATED VIDEO:Jennifer LopezTurns Heads in Low-Cut Grey Pants with Attached, Matching, Visible High-Cut Thong
But Lopez did break out of the Bronx and since then has worked some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, including herSecond Actproducing partner and writer Goldsmith-Thomas, who has also producedMona Lisa Smile,World of Dance, The FostersandShades of Blue.
Her secret, she said, was to pay no attention to the negative voices in her head.
“I think that, for me, the most important thing for me is not listening to all the outside voices, but making sure that the voice that I’m speaking to myself, that roommate is a kind roommate, is a good roommate, is someone that’s lifting me up like Elaine does every single day,” Lopez said, referring to the voice inside of herself.
(from left to right) Desiree Gruber, Jennifer Lopez, Arianna Huffington, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Dr. Stacy L. Smith.Kristina Bumphrey/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock
Goldsmith-Thomas shared the sentiment, calling the icon “a girl’s girl.”
“She’s somebody who says, ‘Get up and do it! You want to be thin, go work out!’ She does the work, and she inspires you to do the work,” the producer explained, adding Lopex was “authentic.”
Second Actis in theaters Dec. 21.
source: people.com
