Ben Affleck’s Wedding With Jennifer Lopez Was Cut From ‘Jersey Girl’ Because of Their Real-Life Relationship Problems
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were reluctant had no problem mixing their relationship with their work when they were first together. The couple worked on the comedy thriller Jersey Girl, which received not too favorable reviews. While filming, there was an important wedding scene in Jersey Girl between Affleck and Lopez’s characters.
But the scene never made it to theaters. Because of the media’s obsession with their relationship, and their break-up, Smith and Affleck wondered if the wedding scene still had a place in Jersey Girl.
‘Jersey Girl’ actor had a dream that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez would get back together
It seems that Jersey Girl actor Raquel Castro knew that Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck would reunite before anyone else did. The actor, who played Affleck and Lopez’s daughter in the film, told Radar she had a premonition about the couple. And this was before she’d learned the two got back together.
“I was so happy to see that,” Castro said about seeing photos showing Affleck and Lopez reunited. “No lie, a few days prior, I had a dream that they got back together. That sounds so fake and cliché, but it’s true!”
Castro also recalled seeing the passion Affleck and Lopez displayed for each other in Jersey Girl. Even at such a young age, the young actor was touched by the experience.
“I remember being with them on set and thinking that they would be such good parents. It felt warm,” she recalled.
The young actor revealed that Jersey Girl director Kevin Smith was considering releasing a director’s cut of the movie. Castro felt excited about that possibility since it would show more of Affleck and Lopez’s passion.
“There’s so much more of their love and relationship that is displayed in the director’s cut,” she added.
The wedding scene in ‘Jersey Girl’ between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez was cut because of their break-up
One of the scenes that some might find interesting to see in Smith’s alleged director’s cut could be a scene where Lopez and Affleck’s characters get married. But although Lopez and Affleck were still a couple, indulging in PDAs on set, the two would later break up in 2004. Jersey Girl would release a couple of months later in March. With Smith well aware of Affleck and Lopez’s relationship problems, he felt it was best to do away with the scene.
“I didn’t know if [it was right] to leave it in,” the director, Kevin Smith, told US Weekly (via Entertainment Weekly). “People might forget they’re watching a picture, like, ‘Wait, didn’t these two NOT get married?’”
Affleck also told IGN that he agreed with Smith’s decision to omit the wedding scene. The former Daredevil didn’t want his relationship with Lopez to take away from the movie.
“I mean, already Jen’s in the first eleven or twelve minutes of the movie, and I think there’s a process in the first few minutes of the movie, like, the audience has to get past this”, Affleck said. “’Here are these people that we’ve heard about all the time on tabloid television shows, or whatever, now they’re playing characters.’ You have to sort of get past that.”
Affleck later added that people would notice the parallels between the wedding in the film and his and Lopez’s relationship. This risked further taking the audience’s attention away from the movie.
“I think having the wedding scene in there it would just be a distraction – you know what I mean? – because you think, ‘Oh, look at this. Irony, irony,'” he said.
Test audiences hated seeing Ben Affleck with Jennifer Lopez in ‘Jersey Girl’
Another reason why Lopez’s screentime in the movie was cut was that people had enough of Bennifer by that point. In an interview with TMZ, Kevin Smith revealed that Gigli’s poor reception resulted in other Lopez scenes being cut. This was because producer Harvey Weinstein, who produced Jersey Girl, wanted to reduce Lopez’s involvement.
“He was like, ‘Get her out quicker,’” Smith recalled about Weinstein.
Smith later added that test audiences hated seeing Affleck and Lopez together in the movie. So much so that they focused all of their attention on the actors themselves instead of the film they were in.
“But the first test screening we had was shortly after, I guess, the “Jenny From the Block” video came out. So people were starting to get, I guess, tired of seeing them together,” Smith said. “So when we did our Q & A after the screening, everyone started attacking them as a couple. Not the movie, but them as a couple. And they’re like, ‘I’m sick of seeing them in real life, so I don’t want to see them in this movie.’”
Smith noted that things are much different now. Fans have gone from not wanting to see Affleck and Lopez together, to not getting enough of them.
