Jennifer Lopez has another movie out this week, but believe me when I say this one is good in an “Actually interesting” way and not in a “What the heck is she doing” way. It’s her documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which follows her as she makes the musical-cinematic experience that is This Is Me … Now: A Love Story. While I cannot in good faith recommend the latter, the documentary is a compelling look into how exactly she got there.
In one scene, Lopez and her team are discussing which celebrities are available to make cameos. While this does end up having a happy ending — Lopez wound up securing Jane Fonda, Keke Palmer, Post Malone, Jennifer Lewis, Trevor Noah, and many more — it does sound kind of like that one Kroll Show sketch.
“Taylor Swift is a no,” says one producer. “Jason Momoa is not available; Jennifer Coolidge not available; Lizzo not available,” says another. One producer asks if J.Lo would want Vanessa Hudgens, to which the star responds, “For what?” It is quickly revealed that she’s actually unavailable, too. Adding on to the people who couldn’t/wouldn’t participate, a producer tells Lopez that Ariana Grande is unavailable. Snoop Dogg is as well. In an earlier scene, Lopez tells a friend that Anthony Ramos declined to participate in the project because he is “good friends” with Lopez’s ex-husband, Marc Anthony.
“I don’t wanna force anybody to do this who doesn’t go, ‘This is going to be fun,’” Lopez says to her longtime manager, Benny Medina. “Nobody wants to say ‘no’ to me, Benny, I get that. But when an actor doesn’t like a script, or doesn’t think it’s good enough, or is worried about it, that’s what they’ll say. I know that. I’ve done it.”
The best moment in this sequence, however, is when someone on J.Lo’s team is discussing the reasons an unnamed person can’t join. “He’s doing Succession, too, and the Lion King and Star Wars: Andor, too. So he’s not available, but he loves you,” her producer says. Someone with all of those credits was unfamiliar, and some light research leads me to believe that Lopez was hoping to secure Oscar-nominated composer Nicholas Britell for This Is Me … Now: A Love Story. I am begging a higher power to let me peek into the universe where scenes of J.Lo doing therapy with Fat Joe are scored with a Succession type beat.
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