Jennifer Lopez is about to shine in the new musical film Kiss of the Spider Woman. The “On the Floor” singer went all out in preparing for her multiple roles and opened up about the difficulties playing them.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is based on the 1992 stage musical by Terrence McNally, John Kander, and Fred Ebb. The film features a story between a transgender character and a cisgender political revolutionary (played by Tonatiuh and Diego Luna) who are pulled from two separate worlds and are imprisoned in one cell. Lopez plays not one, but three different characters.
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“They’re the same person, but they’re three very different iterations of this woman and they’re all very different characters and they have very different looks as well,” Lopez explained to CBS News. “And that was fun. But I think the essence of who they were was very different, but still the same. And I think that was the challenge.” But another challenge for the “Let’s Get Loud” singer was performing all of these scenes in real time.
Jennifer Lopez does, in fact, sing in The Kiss of the Spider Woman. She also sings it in real time since director Bill Condon wanted the singing segments to be filmed in one take. Lopez told NPR that Condon was very “adamant that we shoot this musical in the style of a ’50’s musical – and what they would do is they would create these long shots.” She recalled that Condon specifically had her in mind because she was one of the only stars who could “perform a number from beginning to end. Like, you could do it from leading to bottom perfect.”
For JLo, she wanted to do the best she could since it’s a role that “you can leave no crumbs on the floor.”
“You have to dig so deep into it.” It also taught her some lessons in show business since everything had to be quick. “You don’t have to have all the time to make something a really great piece of art. But it would have been nice to have a little more time.”
On the album for the film, Lopez sings duets with Tonatiuh and Diego Luna in songs like “I Will Dance Alone,” “An Everyday Man,” and “Gimme Love.” She also has powerhouse solos in songs “I Do Miracles” and the titular track “The Kiss of the Spider Woman.” She also debuted a new song for the soundtrack, “Never You,” which was written by John Kander, and has never been performed outside of the musical production’s developmental stages at SUNY in 1990.
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