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Her performance in the George Clooney thriller Out of Sight left millions of men drooling into their popcorn last year and its imminent release on video looks set to convert a few thousand more.
She first sprang to fame in the hit American music biopic Selena and retained her dignity throughout the laughably bad Anaconda.
Roles as a nanny in Blood and Wine and a sultry femme fatale in Oliver Stone's disappointing road movie U-Turn did little harm to her career. Not content with proving she can both look good act act the socks off most of her competitors, Jennifer has now turned her hand to singing - and a fair job she's made of it too. Her debut single went down a storm in the States, beating off some serious competition to secure the number one spot, and she's hoping it has the same effect over here. Lopez and her two sisters grew up in Brooklyn in a close-knit family. Her first big break was winning an audition for the television series In Living Color in 1991. The rest as they say is history.
"I went up against 2,000 girls there. Then I had to go to Los Angeles and compete against 1,000 girls," she recalls. "They called a few months later and said I got the part. That got everything rolling for me."
Her family background has all the passion and identity of many immigrant Latino families living in America, maintains Lopez. Unusually, however, her main language is English, not Spanish. Early on she studied dance and once toured Europe with a musical theatre company.
Getting paid one million dollars to play Selena was a major breakthrough, she says but money is not the only thing that's changed in her life. A couple of years ago she married male model Ojani Noa and they made Miami their home.
Now she's America's top Latino actress and believes that it takes more than good looks and charm to bring in the punters. If you're a household name, then things are a lot easier in selling a movie.
Lopez explains: "Then you're seen as someone who can bring people into the theatres. When you talk about being a major player, that's what it means. Like Michelle Pfeiffer. That is important in Hollywood. I'm going to find a way to do that too.
"I say if you want to do anything, don't let anybody tell you you can't. Because I'm Latino and because of where we're from, Hollywood seems so far away, but it isn't. You have to give it your best shot, even if it's so you can say you tried."
© 1999 Roger Crow
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