Why Jennifer Lopez Was ‘Done’ With ‘Shades of Blue’ After 3 Seasons
Jennifer Lopez took a break from doing blockbuster movies to star in the short-lived cop series Shades of Blue. But after three seasons, she felt it was time to move on from the program.
What Jennifer Lopez thought about her run on TV
Shades of Blue tried offering a different take on the typical police procedural. The television series saw Lopez playing a former dirty cop trying to provide for her family using questionable means. After being caught, Lopez’s dirty cop character would be forced to become an informant.
Speaking with Parade, Lopez shared she had no issue with returning to the world of television. She hadn’t been cast in a long-running show since her In Living Color Days, although she did appear in a few shows every now and then. In the 2010s, Lopez felt it was more than a good time to do TV. Back then, television was rivaling, and perhaps even surpassing, movies with its quality.
“To be honest, for me, right now in television—it’s like the best movies are on television. The characters are better. The stories have more of an opportunity to really explore something. This was just a really exciting opportunity to do something that I hadn’t done in a while in a different way than I had done in a long time,” she said.
She had faith that Shades of Blue could be a part of this golden age of television. The series would go on to run for three seasons. And although Lopez received a lot of praise for her performance, the show itself received lukewarm reviews. However, Lopez asserted that she ultimately made the decision to discontinue the project.
“It’s time to move on and we always knew this would have a finite run. When we got to the third season, I was like, ‘I think we’re done with this.’ And the way the season ends, I think this is it. I did three years in Vegas and three years on Shades and it seemed perfect to move on to the next chapter for me,” she said in a 2018 interview with IndieWire.
Jennifer Lopez considered her ‘Shades of Blue’ role her favorite character
Lopez has starred in a variety of movies in her long career, playing characters that ranged from action heroes to hopeless romantics. But she had a special place in her heart for the morally gray cop she portrayed in Shades. The character wasn’t just interesting to play for Lopez, it also affected her on a personal level.
“I really loved this character and could have done it another couple of years, easily. They would have. But it was time,” she said. “This character of all the characters I’ve played is probably my favorite. And one that affected me the most. Permeated my soul. She was so complex and deep down a good person that was so playing outside the lines of morality and her own ethics and integrity and really struggling all the time. That struggle is something we all go through and it made me examine my own struggles and my own life and help me grow.”
Jennifer Lopez initially wasn’t supposed to be cast in ‘Shades of Blue’
Lopez was heavily involved with the development of Shades of Blue. She worked as an executive producer on the show, and helped pitch it to studios. Initially, Lopez was going to remain a behind-the-scenes producer. But the studio was just as excited about getting Lopez to star in the project, as they were about broadcasting the project.
“When we went into NBC and pitched it, they loved the whole idea, and they were like, ‘You’re not playing this role?’ Bob Greenblatt said to me, ‘You play this role, we’ll do it right now.’ This is an amazing role, and it really made me think, okay, this is something that I want to happen,” Lopez told Deadline.
