When Jennifer Lopez pitched the idea for her “surrealistic magical odyssey” of a new film, the Amazon original that would eventually be titled This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, she was met with a resounding message: Was she sure?
“Everybody thought I was crazy,” Lopez told Variety in a cover story about her audacious three-pronged project. “And by the way, I thought I was crazy.” The February 16 joint debut of her hour-long musical film and what may be her final album will be followed by the release of a making-of documentary, titled The Greatest Love Story Never Told, on February 27. The doc’s title, which comes from a stack of love letters that J-Lo’s now husband, Ben Affleck, wrote to her, has obvious irony. As Ben reportedly points out in the documentary: “If you’re making a record about it, that seems kind of like telling it.”
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J-Lo’s $20 million venture, which was self-funded when a possible financier dropped out at the last minute, was, she said, met with resistance every step of the way. The film is described by Variety as “a partly animated musical journey” through Jen’s romantic missteps on her way to reuniting with Ben. For those uninitiated on the great love story that is Bennifer, the couple initially broke off their engagement shortly after postponing their planned 2003 wedding, before reconnecting and finally walking down the aisle nearly two decades later. Ben said publicising private details of their story “was something of an adjustment for me.” (The Oscar-winning filmmaker and actor seemingly appears in the movie as a character named Rex Stone.)
Ben had a more tactful way of expressing his concern than J-Lo’s producing partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas did, who said, “I was worried. ‘Why are you sharing your story? It’s too personal. Stop it.’ It made me uncomfortable for her.” When asked whether she came around to the concept, Elaine bluntly declared, “No! She never won me over. I was petrified the whole time.”
J-Lo’s former Monster-in-Law costar Jane Fonda had a similar reaction, initially balking at appearing in the movie. “I want you to know that I don’t entirely know why, but I feel invested in you and Ben, and I really want this to work,” Fonda reportedly says in the documentary. “However, this is absurd. Like, it feels too much like you’re trying to prove something instead of just living it. You know, every other photograph is the two of you kissing and the two of you hugging.”
Nevertheless, Jane was convinced to join J-Lo’s “zodiac love council”—a Greek chorus of sorts that guides her romantic heroine over the course of the film. Its bonkers lineup includes Trevor Noah, Sofía Vergara, Keke Palmer, Post Malone, Jay Shetty, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Kim Petras. Derek Hough is credited on IMDb as “Husband 2” and Fat Joe plays Lopez’s therapist. But others declined to be part of the film, including one Khloé Kardashian, according to Variety. “People are scared to put themselves out there,” J-Lo apparently says on camera.
Music video director Dave Meyers helms the movie from a script Jennifer cowrote with Matt Walton. But as she told Variety, it was her husband who guided her through the filmmaking process. “Ben told me, ‘You’re gonna write it, and then you’re going to film it,’” she recalled. J-Lo added that after Ben watched her magnum opus, “he said, ‘You made a movie. For you. You made a great movie. You did it.’” That was the only seal of approval she required. “Honestly, I don’t care what happens now,” she said. “That is the biggest kind of compliment that I could get.”
This article originally appeared in Vanity Fair.