J-Lo talks to ReelzChannel.com about El Cantante.
You can't help but be a little awestruck when Jennifer Lopez enters a room. She is, after all, one of the most famous people of her generation. And to have such personal access to her is a little mind-blowing.
Tales of previous encounters with her and her diva-ish ways sailed about the 
suite, but Lopez was lovely and convivial today. Breezing in wearing a short, silvery, stunnnig Dior dress and perfect makeup, she was all enthusiasm and smiles for her pet project, El Cantante--a musical biopic of real-life salsa icon Hector Lavoe. In it, Lopez plays Hector's wife Puchi, with whom he had a very...tempestuous...relationship.
"I think they loved each other," she said, when asked to explain what kept them together through all the fights and problems. "I think at the end of the day, as much as they were killing each other, they loved each other. I mean the door is right there. We all know. Everyone in this room knows. You’ve all been in relationships. It’s like, 20 years! Nobody can tell you to stay when you don’t want to stay. The way no one can force you to go if you don’t want to go. It has to be something that comes from you."
Lopez plays opposite her real-life husband, mega-musician Marc Anthony, who stars as the troubled, drug addicted salsa pioneer, who ultimately died of AIDS in 1993. "I have to say, it was a real blessing to be able to work with Marc," she enthused. "You know, when I put him in the movie five and a half years ago or wanted him to be in the movie, I never thought that we’d be together at this time. Who knew that? But we were and that actually helped. I guess everything is destiny and fate and all that kind of stuff."
Luckily, she thinks Anthony was the right casting choice--and not just because they wound up getting together. "It was such a seamless performance. I don’t even feel like you see him acting," Lopez says of her husband. "Somebody, some old actor said that: ‘Don’t let them see you doing it.’ And I really felt he just did, he just felt like he was Hector. That’s it. That was him."
Anthony was surely helped by his resemblance to Lavoe, as well as his ample musical talents. Friends and family members of the late Lavoe were moved to tears seeing Anthony in costume on set. "His niece just came and grabbed me and just started crying hysterically. 'Just let me hold you for a couple of minutes,'" said Anthony.
The couple agree that that Lavoe was a musical flashpoint, a touchstone for the Latin community. "I remember him being ever-present," explained Anthony. "We grew up with the music," Lopez added. "It was like the soundtrack to your life. You know, being Puerto Rican and living in New York and growing up at that time, it was at all the parties. Every birthday party, every Christmas. That was what it was."
El Cantante is the first film under Lopez's banner, Nuyorican Productions, and it took her over five years to get the film made--even with all the pull that comes along with her celebrity status. "It was tough," said the multi-industry entrepreneur. "It's hard getting independent films made, but also somebody that nobody knows. In the Latin community, he’s so well known. For us it was like, ‘What do you mean you don’t know Hector Lavoe?’ But for everybody else it was kind of like, well, Hollywood was a little bit more like, ‘Okay...'"
But Lopez and eventually Anthony felt passionate that the film needed to be made. "Sometimes I was like, ‘Why am I pushing this boulder up hill? God this is crazy!’" said Lopez. "And then I’d listen to the music or I’d go back and watch the performances of the Fania All-Stars and watch Hector just bring the crowd down," she recalled. "At the end of the day, it was really about his music he left behind and how it touched people."
El Cantante opens Friday, August 3.
Click on ReelzChannel.com's El Cantante page for clips from the movie and more!