Jennifer Lopez: No Fur An Answer

In the lobby of LA's Four Seasons Hotel I'm checked, re-checked, probed, prodded, x-rayed and branded with a sparkly, pink, wristband. Then I get the all-clear from a burly, black-suited CIA-looking fellow to interview Jennifer Lopez about her latest movie, Monster-in-Law.

Lopez has received death threats for wearing animal fur and mink eyelashes in her latest music video, Hold you Down, and for using fur in her new fashion line, Sweetface.

There was a pre-interview warning: no fur questions or Lopez will walk out.

The 35-year-old has a US$350 million ($495 million) fashion and fragrance empire, has sold 35 million CDs, and gets US$12 million ($17 million) a picture.

The Puerto Rican beauty, who boasts that her struggling years consisted of missed meals when she was just "Jenny from the block" (that's a block in the Bronx, you understand), has transformed herself into a global institution.

The acting began with some impressive offerings in the late 1990s, although later films - such as Shall We Dance and Gigli - have struggled. The pop career snowballed after the United States box-office success of Selena (1997), in which Lopez played murdered singer Selena Perez.

It was the "Bennifer" media circus surrounding her relationship with Ben Affleck - which ended in January 2004 - that threw a spanner in the works. Lopez admits she at first welcomed the attention. "I don't want to complain. I take responsibility for the fact that I didn't make adjustments. Now I'm a little more careful. I travel in a certain way. I leave at a certain time. I learned."

In a black, figure-hugging, backless Fendi dress which accentuates her precious derriere, with her earlobes and wrists dripping with diamonds, with chocolate-brown doe-eyes, flawless cinnamon skin, and cascading honey-highlighted hair, she's breathtakingly gorgeous.

"I think that's an aspect of being in this business - you have a public persona," she says in her strong Bronx accent. "Who you really are, that's your own thing. You have to hold on to that yourself. Your family knows what is all true, but it's all about keeping a focus on the work."

Monster-in-Law marks the end of Jane Fonda's 14-year absence from the big screen. Lopez laughs at how she worked out to Fonda's exercise tapes in the 1980s and says she was anxious at the prospect of working with the 67-year-old Oscar-winner.

"I couldn't be scared and I had to gain her respect," she smiles. "I had butterflies in my stomach. But at the end of the day, I had to bring to the table what they were paying me for."

Lopez plays a hippy-chick, Charlie, who finally meets the man of her dreams, Dr Kevin Fields (Michael Vartan), only to discover that his mother, Viola, (Fonda) believes Charlie is not good enough to marry her son.

"We had some crazy, fun times on this shoot," Lopez says. "There were two scenes which we kept rewinding which were hilarious. They were a scene where Jane pushes my face in a cake, and a time when she punches me in bed. All the slaps were real, and a lot of bags of ice were needed."

Lopez, the second of three daughters, was raised in a strict Catholic family in the Bronx. She recounts her initial taste of success. "The second movie I ever made was called Blood and Wine, with Jack Nicholson, and I was brand new at that point. I thought: 'I'm in a movie, what's he doing here?' And he's right across from me.'

"What you learn from actors like Jack and Jane is their work ethic. That's what I'm all about these days."

LOWDOWN

WHO: Jennifer Lopez

BORN: July 24, 1969, The Bronx, New York

WHAT: New film, Monster-In-Law

PAST ROLES: Shall We Dance (2004); Jersey Girl (2004); Gigli (2003); Maid in Manhattan (2002); Enough (2002); Angel Eyes (2001); The Cell (2000); Out of Sight (1998); U Turn (1997); Anaconda (1997); Selena (1997); Blood and Wine (1996); Money Train (1995)

FUTURE MOVIES: American Darlings, Bordertown, An Unfinished Life, all expected this year.