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THE PITTER-PATTER OF J. L O 'S PERFUME; Movie, Music and Matrimony Queen Jennifer Lopez Talks about Her Latest Passion - and Why Her New Scent, Live, Smells of Babies.
September 25, 2005
In the corridor outside Jennifer Lopez's vast Beverly Hills hotel suite a man the size of Manhattan is standing guard against intruders.
It isn't possible to see if he is armed, partly because of his bulk and partly because it doesn't seem wise to risk attracting his attention by looking too closely in his direction.
Inside the suite, another, possibly even larger, bodyguard is scrutinising all movements in and out of the doors (even the waiter removing Ms Lopez's lunch tray). Such is the tension in the room in which I am waiting - agitated minders talk to each other through headsets - that by the time I finally, four hours later than scheduled, get my audience with the most influential actress in the world (according to Forbes magazine), I am full of foreboding.
Particularly as, when I look round the palatial room into which I am shown, I cannot immediately locate Ms Lopez.
There are four or five smartly dressed women and two or three men in suits sitting on seats scattered around the room, but no sign of the thrice-married 35-year-old actress-singer-entrepreneur. It isn't until I am directed to a chair placed close to a large velvet-covered sofa that I notice a tiny figure dwarfed behind a tall, heavily made-up man (her stylist I think), and realise I am in the presence of the woman whose fiance-before-last (Ben Affleck) described as the 'most lethally attractive woman' he'd ever met.
The high level of security and the general air of anxiety that surrounds her raises a number of questions about what it is Jennifer (as I have been cautioned to call her) is trying to hide. Is she, I wonder, experiencing problems in her third marriage (she has been hitched to singer Marc Anthony for well over a year now; before that she was wed to dancer Cris Judd for 16 months, and prior to him, waiter Ojani Noa for 11 months)? Maybe she's pregnant (rumours of a possible baby have haunted her for the past 16 months)? Or is she perhaps still smarting over the news that the ex-love-of-her-life - Affleck - has married another Jennifer Garner and is expecting a baby? But, mindful of the fact that I am not allowed to mention the three Ms (marriage, Marc Anthony or motherhood), I find myself nervously asking her about another subject that has, over the years, provoked almost as much comment: her derriere.
When Jennifer first found fame, in an industry in which every other actress was uniformly skeletally thin, did anyone pressure her to change her shape? The relief with which this slightly impertinent question is greeted is such that the actress breaks into a huge smile.
'At the beginning, when I first started doing music and movies I think I had this attitude that I didn't have to be like anyone else. I didn't have to conform to being very thin. Of course, there were people who tried to change me, make me lose weight. I had this manager who was very critical of my shape, he felt that everyone should look like Heather Locklear - thin and blond. I fired him - I was like, "That's not me,"' she says.
Although she is rarely credited for it, Jennifer has been something of a pioneer of 'real beauty', making it possible for others - singer Beyonce and actress Jessica Alba, for example - to be themselves. (Alba was recently quoted as saying, 'I hear people in Hollywood talking about how Jennifer Lopez is fat, and I know if they're calling her fat, they're saying the same about me.') What does Lopez think of the Dove skincare posters - featuring real women with real curves - that have just gone up across Los Angeles?
'You know, I can feel a change for women,' she says, pausing a moment before continuing, 'I don't know if I have helped change things for other women, but I know that if I could have contributed in any way to that change, then I am very proud of that.' Making things change for women is something that Jennifer is passionate about at the moment. Her next major project is an independent film, Bordertown, in which she plays a journalist investigating the infamous 'femicides' of Ciudad Juarez. (According to Amnesty International USA, since 1993 more than 400 women and girls have been murdered on the southwest border between Mexico and the US.) 'I am producing the film as well. It's a very serious movie about a very serious contemporary issue. So many women down there in Juarez have been killed and no one is doing anything about it. I am very passionate about getting justice for the women,' she says, fiddling nervously with a cushion she has been holding, on and off, over her stomach.
The idea of Jennifer, whose most recent films have been, to say the least, lightweight, emerging as a feminist activist might seem unlikely - particularly if you glance down at her studded, pink-suede platform shoes - but she has, she says, always been a 'woman's woman'.
One of three daughters raised in New York's Bronx by a mother who taught them they could be anything they wanted, and a father whom she has said is the only man, apart from her current husband, to give her 'unconditional love', it was always obvious that her success was about more than just those stunning looks.
Highly focused and totally driven, Jennifer has cleverly diversified her interests from movies and music to jewellery, clothes, makeup and perfume (she is in LA to promote her fourth fragrance, Live). How does she defend herself against allegations that she has exploited her fame by turning herself into a 'brand'?
'I am not one of those people who will put their name on anything for the money. It's not about that for me. It's about my passions - that's all I have. I don't want just to stand by something, I want to stand by something and say, "Look, this is something good, this is going to make somebody's day better, people are going to enjoy this." That's what entertainment is - movies, music, fashion - that's what it is about, it's making people feel happy and making their lives a little bit better in that little way,' she says, in a manner that makes her latest lucrative venture (since her first fragrance was launched her name has sold ten million bottles of perfume worldwide) seem like a philanthropic exercise.
Jennifer is also at pains to point out that she is extremely hands-on - not to say controlling - about the products that carry her name. ('I am very hard on them,' she says indicating several of the men and women in suits in the room.) 'I was involved in every aspect of the design and production of the bottle and then it was a case of, "OK, for the juice what are we going to do?" And they were like, "Let's get specific, what smells intrigue you right now?" and I was like, "Well, babies. The smell of a baby's head, you know, the way the top of their heads smell."
Then I think I said warm yellow cake and a redcurrant candle I had at home, and they went away to experiment with those things and see what they could come up with.' The idea of men in laboratories blending babies' heads, yellow cake and redcurrants together to make the new Lopez fragrance is so bizarre that I am unable to resist a facetious question.
'How many babies went into that bottle of perfume?' 'None!' she squeals.
'None, please, please, I don't need those kind of accusations about babies.
No babies went into that bottle.' 'A lot of redcurrants went in,' says one of the suits.
'But not so many babies,' intercepts another.
'No, you know what I mean, the baby powder, you know those smells-' says Jennifer between snorts of laughter.
However reluctant Jennifer might be to discuss her personal life, it is clear from this new awareness of the sweet smell of babies that she might be ready for a little expansion (perhaps that cushion placed against her stomach is meant to conceal more than her nervousness).
Clearly, either in her role as aunt to her nieces and nephews, or as stepmother to Anthony's two young 'babies' from his first marriage to the former Miss Universe, Dayanara Torres, she has discovered the intoxicating scent of children.
Since marrying Anthony - whose Latin roots and recording career match her own - she has admitted to being anxious to establish a greater balance in her life. Whether having a child will complete that process she won't say (although she does say at one point 'I want a family').
'Little by little I am getting a balance. It has been a struggle because I have been so focused on my career for so many years. Then all of a sudden you start realising that this is not happiness in life, this is not what it's all about.
It's great to be fulfilled as an individual and an artist, but there is more. I have learnt that I am not a machine. I have to take care of myself,' she says, with her voice full of emotion.
Living and learning seem to be Jennifer's key words of the moment. She is, she says, 'hungry for knowledge' and while she is a little vague about how exactly she assimilates new ideas ('I am not a big book reader'), you get the impression that she is genuinely keen to widen her horizons (she talks a lot, too, about 'reinventing').
'When you start out, you are struggling because you are trying to get somewhere, but then you get to a point where it is no longer about the goal but about the passion, and it's a much better place to be. Some people know that from the start, but I didn't. I had to take time to learn. But then life is a learning process.
'Hopefully I will always be learning. The day you stop is the day - I guess - you become pretty boring, right?' she says with such sincerity and charm that I agree with her, even though I am not entirely sure I know what she means.
Ms Lopez is so adept at avoiding questions she doesn't want to answer and so clever in the way in which she attempts to tell you what you don't want to know (the joy she derives from dancing, for example, or how perfume is the finishing touch to your 'whole outfit') that a recent story run in the German press about her ambition to become the first female president of the United States suddenly doesn't sound so preposterous. Could her next reinvention be as a politician?
'Will I be the first female president? Well maybe I could be Hillary's vice president. No, no, the only other area that intrigues me, which is also creative, is interior design. Maybe I will do a line for the home. But really what I am trying to do now is to live for the moment. I'm not as goal-oriented as I was before. I am in a different place. But you learn these things as you go and that's why my perfume Live comes at such a good time.
Everything about it is about living,' she says, bringing us back to the job in hand (promoting her fragrance) in a manner that is so reminiscent of a seasoned politician that the notion of Vice President Lopez is no less believable than, say, a fifth fragrance or a fourth husband?
Live is available from 28 September nationwide at leading department stores, Boots and pharmacies.
Byline: JANE GORDON
Article Title: THE PITTER-PATTER OF J. L O 'S PERFUME; Movie, Music and Matrimony Queen Jennifer Lopez Talks about Her Latest Passion - and Why Her New Scent Live, Smells of Babies. Newspaper Title: The Mail on Sunday. Publication Date: September 25, 2005. Page Number: 26. COPYRIGHT 2005 Solo Syndication Limited
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