Director Bill Condon admits that Jennifer Lopez was driven to the “hellish corners of New Jersey” for her “diva” role in his film Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Lopez filmed her scenes for the musical flick in March and April, 2024, but Condon feared that she wouldn’t want to go through with the role after she saw where she was being driven every day for her musical numbers.
To The Hollywood Reporter, Condon revealed the locale was “in New Jersey, the hellish corners of New Jersey of converted warehouse and things like that. The idea of Jennifer Lopez being driven there every day is like, ‘Oh my God, I hope she has like blinders on where she can’t see where we are taking her,' because it’s like terrifying.”
The director claimed that his on-set office “looked out on this swamp where you just knew that everyone from The Sopranos was showing up every week to dump a body. It was that kind of production, but it was fun.”
Lopez said yes to the iconic role of Ingrid Luna/Aurora/The Spider Woman after first meeting Condon at the Golden Globe Awards in 2007. He recalled the triple threat talking about how much she wanted to make a musical, and he had “faith” this story would speak to her.
“Jennifer Lopez is the reason this movie got made. There’s only one person who could play this diva. We don’t have that many divas. I can count them on one hand. And then how many of them are great dancers, singers and Latin? I think there’s only one,” the director claimed.
Lopez shot her scenes in under four weeks, doing almost one musical number a day. A typical musical is shot over a dozen weeks.
The film tells the story of Valentín (Diego Luna), a political prisoner, who shares a cell with Molina (Tonatiuh), a window dresser convicted of public indecency. The two bond as Molina recounts the plot of a Hollywood musical starring Ingrid Luna (Lopez).
Kiss of the Spider Woman hits theaters October 10, 2025.
