Emotion got the best of Jennifer Lopez at the premiere of the Kiss of the Spider Woman remake at Sundance on Sunday evening. The actress and singer called the movie musical her “dream come true” as her performance drew raving reviews from critics.
Lopez made her way to the Eccles Center stage in Park City, Utah, to the sound of a sweeping standing ovation after the world premiere of the Bill Condon-directed film on the third day of the Sundance Film Festival. The energy of the moment as well as the realization of her childhood dream brought the actress to tears as she addressed the adoring audience.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” she started. “The truth is — when you talk about the importance of musicals — the reason that I even wanted to be in this business was because my mom would sit me in front of the TV, and it would come on once a year, West Side Story, on Thanksgiving, I ,” Lopez continued. “And I was just mesmerized, and I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”
As Lopez reflected on the full circle moment, she couldn’t hold back her tears. “This is the first time that I actually got to do it,” she choked up, then hugged Condon as she acknowledged that he had made her dream come true. She reportedly leads a whopping eleven musical numbers in the film.
Kiss of the Spider Woman was a 1985 film, adapted from a 1976 novel by Argentine writer Manuel Puig, that earned William Hurt his one and only Oscar, and then a 1993 seven-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical sensation led by Chita Rivera. This time around, the reviews have been relatively cautious, though most tastemakers agree that 55-year-old Lopez is at the top of her game.
“The role she was born to play,” says it’s impossible to escape her web,” adds writer Cat Cardenas who is already calling for Lopez’s 2026 Oscar campaign.
Lopez plays Ingrid Luna, a silver screen superstar, whose performance in the musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, which he imagines and recreates, helps Argentine Dirty War prisoner Luis Molina (played by newcomer Tonatiuh) escape the horrors of his daily life. The cast also includes Diego Luna as a Marxist political prisoner called Valentin Arregui Paz who shares a cell with Molina.
The year has barely started and this is already Lopez’s second critically acclaimed film performance. The first came with Unstoppable, which, after a limited theatrical release, arrived on Prime Video on Jan. 16. The actress’ performance as the mother of Anthony Robles, an American wrestler with a disability who won a national championship, was lauded as the best of her career. This might no longer be true after the release of Kiss of the Spider Woman.
After a turbulent 2024 which saw her divorce husband Ben Affleck (an executive producer on Kiss of the Spider Woman and accompanying documentary, 2025 is shaping up to be Lopez’s year.
Published: Jan 27, 2025 06:58 am