Jennifer Lopez brought major star power to the Variety Studio presented by Audible at Sundance ahead of the world premiere of her new musical, “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” She was joined in the interview by the film’s director, Bill Condon, best known for writing the Oscar-winning “Chicago” and for directing “Dreamgirls,” and co-star Tonatiuh. Lopez was exuberant in saying she’s waited her whole life for a film role like this.
“I was waiting my whole life to be able to do a real big MGM Hollywood musical, and I finally got to do it,” Lopez told Variety’s Matt Donnelly. “It was more [than I hoped]. Me and Diego [Luna] were on set and we’re dancing around and we’re singing and looking at each other and it’s like we don’t want to do anything else but musicals. Diego said that! Me too. I don’t want to do anything else.”
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” is a feature adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical of the same name, which won Chita Rivera a Tony Award for the role that Lopez is now playing on screen. The music is by legends John Kander and Fred Ebb, while the musical itself is based on the novel by Manuel Puig.
The musical is set in an Argentinian prison in 1981. Lopez would play the titular role, a fantasy woman named Aurora created by Luis Molina, a gay hairdresser serving an eight-year sentence for allegedly corrupting a minor. To escape the horrors of his imprisonment, Molina imagines movies starring Aurora as a classic silver screen diva, which includes the role of the spider woman, who kills her prey with a kiss. Molina’s life is upended when a Marxist, Valentin Arregui Paz, is brought into his cell, and the two form an unlikely bond.
Lopez said the film acts as a reminder “that love heals all divides,” explaining: “It’s about two different people who come together and find the humanity in one another and fall in love. To me, that is something that is special and needs to be seen. We are all just human. It’s an important movie in this way.”
When the topic of Oscar buzz was brought up, Lopez said she didn’t “even want to begin the conversation,” although she added: “Of course, I would love it to get the recognition that I believe it deserves.”
“Bill wrote a script that for the the first time in my life I was in bed reading it and I started saying it out loud. Saying the lines and laughing and crying,” Lopez said. “This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I got into movies because of ‘West Side Story.’ I thought I was going to do Broadway. I wanted to do movies but I didn’t even think about records. I wanted to do musicals. I love musicals. My kids love musicals. My mother did. It was a dream fulfilled in having done the movie.”
Before Sundance, Lopez told Variety that working on “Kiss of the Spider Woman” was “probably my favorite movie experience,” adding: “It’s a film about how love transcends everything — the hardest circumstances, gender, social prejudices. Everything.”
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” is one of the biggest movies for sale at Sundance this year.