DUBAI: Film star Jennifer Lopez says she didn’t need to do much research for “Marry Me” as it is very relatable to her life in the spotlight. She was talking to Arab News about her role in the newly released movie.
US-Puerto Rican Lopez stars with Owen Wilson and Maluma in a romantic comedy about the unlikely marriage between a pop superstar and a math teacher.
She plays Kat Valdez, a singer megastar who discovers her fiance, played by Maluma, has cheated on her. She decides to marry a stranger (Owen Wilson) onstage at a concert.
“The difficult part was kind of the meta part which was the idea of showing what it’s really like inside my bedroom when something goes wrong and you suffer a heartbreak like this in front of the whole world and the media kind of goes to town on you,” she said.
American romantic comedy veteran Wilson stars alongside Lopez as her romantic interest in the film. The pair have worked together before, the first time being in the 1997 horror movie “Anaconda.”
This is the first live action film for internationally known singer Maluma, who was prompted to take the role by co-star Lopez.
“I didn’t know how it works. It was my first time and then when I was there with Jennifer, she was like, ‘yo, we’re gonna do this. You’re gonna kill it. Just get focused, you know'” She gave me a bunch of advice,” the Colombian-born songwriter said to Arab News.
Lopez took on the responsibility for the music as it plays a major part in the film. Working alongside the creative team, she sorted through possible songs and chose what would work best for which scenes and characters.
She said: “Picking the songs was such a pleasure for me. And then to have Maluma fill in the blanks for his character — he did such a great job with the two songs that he did. I just felt we really found the characters within those songs.”
Lopez and Maluma joined forces to record songs for the soundtrack, some of which are already hitting top of the music charts.
“Marry Me” is now showing in theaters in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.