Jennifer Lopez Said the Way 1 Famous Director Treated Her Made Her Never Want to Work With Him Again
In 1997, Jennifer Lopez worked with director Oliver Stone in the film U-Turn. This was a bit of a surprising career move as she once swore to never work with Stone. When Lopez first auditioned for Stone for a different film, she found his attitude toward her appalling. Here’s what made her change his mind about the director.
Jennifer Lopez said director Oliver Stone did not make a good impression on her
In the early 1990s, before Lopez’s career took off, she auditioned for one of Stone’s films. The project never came to fruition, but it left a bad taste in Lopez’s mouth. She didn’t feel he gave her the appropriate amount of respect in her audition.
“The minute I began reading this long, four-page scene, he started walking around the room,” she told Movieline in 1998. “Then he began rearranging the furniture. I’m like, ‘What is he doing? This is so rude.’”
Lopez felt he’d hardly noticed she was in the room. She vowed to never work with him.
“Well, he rearranged his entire office, and when I finished, the casting director said, ‘Oliver?’ and he turns and goes, ‘Oh — um, OK. So you’re a regular on that TV series? And I go, ‘Yeah.’ And I left,” she said. “I told my manager, ‘I’ve never been treated like this and I never want to work for Oliver Stone.'”
Jennifer Lopez grew to like Oliver Stone
Several years after this, Stone reached out to Lopez, asking her to appear in U-Turn. Initially, Lopez said no.
“I told [my agent], ‘You guys know I don’t want to work with him.’ Click!”
She softened when Stone reached out to her personally, though.
‘Well, he called himself and he wants to make amends. I have the upper hand here because I don’t care about this movie. I’ve got Selena and I’m getting a million dollars for it.’ That’s the best way to deal with these bigwigs,” she said. “I just went in there and we hit it off and I flirted with him, got tough with him and he just loved it.”
Their working relationship nearly fell apart again when the director began to consider Sharon Stone for the role. It ultimately went to Lopez, though. When she got to the set, Stone apologized to her for looking at another actor.
“The first day we were on the set, [Oliver] said, ‘I’m sorry about the Sharon thing. When a major player calls, you have to play it out. But you were always my first choice,’” Lopez recalled. “He was just trying to make me feel better about it, like he wanted me to be really confident, and I thought it was nice of him to care. He’s like that. He has a soft, vulnerable side.”
She said she loved the way he smelled
After working with him, Lopez said her opinion of Stone shifted entirely. She liked him as a person and she loved the way he smelled.
“Oliver is a great guy, highly sexual, and he was so good to me making the movie,” she said. “Oh, and something else — I’m attracted to scent and he smells really great, like spicy lavender. You know what those expensive purple candies smell like in your mouth? The ones nobody has here but you can get in New York and Europe? That’s what he smells like.”
