Jennifer Lopez’s new film, ‘Atlas,’ premieres May 24 on Netflix.
Jennifer Lopez doesn’t need any training from her husband, Ben Affleck.
In a recent interview with ET’s Rachel Smith, Lopez and co-stars Simu Liu and Sterling K. Brown discussed their experiences filming their upcoming science fiction action thriller, Atlas.
Despite the intense and dynamic nature of the film, Lopez disclosed that there wasn’t any specific training regimen for the cast. When asked about their preparation for the movie, the trio humorously responded, “What was training?” while Lopez emphasized, “There was no boot camp,” contrary to Brown’s jest about a six-week boot camp.
Instead, they faced the challenges head-on, with Lopez mentioning that while there were intense scenes, the approach was more of a “you can handle it” mentality.
Transitioning from discussions about the film’s preparation to her personal endeavors, Lopez shared the stark differences between rehearsing for a tour and training for Atlas.
Describing the process of preparing for her upcoming tour in support of her latest album, This Is Me… Now, Lopez articulated the grueling nature of the rehearsals, involving long hours of dancing, singing, and refining performances.
“It’s brutal. Yeah, it’s brutal,” she admitted. “Eight, nine, 10-hour days every day dancing, singing, ideating, saying, ‘That sucks. Start again. Let’s try that number.’ It’s just a building of a whole show, you know, and that’s a big undertaking. Which I’m about to really delve into.”
Amid her busy schedule, which includes filming, music projects, and the upcoming tour, Lopez was asked about her relationship with her husband and whether they train together.
Laughing off the suggestion, Lopez clarified, “No, no, no. I work on my own.” She revealed that Affleck is currently engrossed in filming his action movie, indicating their respective professional commitments.
In February, Lopez walked the red carpet at the premiere of This Is Me… Now: A Love Story at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, where she spoke with ET about the emotional story that unfolded in the unique cinematic project.
“The album that I made was very honest, about kind of wanting to capture this moment in time of reconnecting with a love,” Lopez said. “It seems like a fairytale, but it really wasn’t. And so I really wanted to tell that part of the story — the real story, in a way, but not my autobiographical story.”
According to Lopez, she and director/co-writer Dave Meyers “came up with the idea of telling the story of a hopeless romantic who kind of is going through her life’s journey in her search for love, and what it means and what it’s about.”
Lopez shared that she showed This Is Me… Now: A Love Story to her 15-year-old twins — daughter Emme and son Max, whom she shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony — and explained to them how the project explores a version of real events that blend truth and fictional narrative.
“I was talking to my kids about this, and then they’re like, ‘Which parts are real and which parts are not?’ And I said, ‘You will think some parts are real, that are not. And then some parts you don’t think are real, are real,'” Lopez recalled. “But it is inspired by a lot of the things I went through and it’s really about what it has been for me to be a hopeless romantic my whole life, and some of the pitfalls of that.”
For Lopez, it was “kind of exciting and terrifying to explore all of it” in such a public and open space. “But for the first time, I felt really compelled to do something that wasn’t about anything except wanting to do something, like art for art’s sake, and that’s why I did it myself,” she added.
Atlas premieres May 24 on Netflix.