Jennifer Lopez Took Ex-Boyfriend Alex Rodriguez to a Strip Club to Prepare for ‘Hustlers’
Jennifer Lopez was so dedicated to playing a professional dancer in Hustlers that she even mastered pole dancing. But that wasn’t the only thing she did to embody her role. To take her preparation even further, Lopez invited her ex-boyfriend to the strip club.
How Alex Rodriguez helped Jennifer Lopez get into the mindset of a professional dancer
Lopez took a role unlike most in her career when she played Ramona Vega in the movie Hustlers. Playing the veteran stripper in the film was harder than it looked, however. Before she committed to the part, she decided to visit a strip club for research. Her ex-boyfriend, Alex Rodriguez, was willing to help her study for the role. And according to Lopez, Rodriguez actually provided some valuable help.
“He [Rodriguez] did give a great insight from his side,” Lopez once said on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “This is how it opens up. I said I am doing this movie Hustlers and I’m playing a stripper and I will have to visit some strip clubs and he’s like, ‘Really? I’ll go with you, I know everything.’”
The film’s director, Lorene Scafaria, confided that Lopez’s preparation for the movie went beyond researching for the role. Although she was already in good shape, dancing on poles was one of the many things she learned to do for Hustlers.
“She’s obviously such an unbelievable dancer, but she trained so hard-core for this. Pole dancing is not like anything else. It required muscles you don’t know you have. So we did treat it a little bit like a sports movie in that way,” she once told Vulture.
Additionally, Scafaria also benefited from Rodriguez’s knowledge of strip clubs.
“She and Alex went and visited a strip club, and she was able to give me some … insights,” Scafaria joked.
Jennifer Lopez found stripping in ‘Hustlers’ empowering
Lopez wasn’t shy when the time came to show off the results of her Hustlers research. So much so that she wanted to make sure that audiences knew it was her while doing the film’s stripper scenes.
“I was like, ‘Please get a close-up of my face, even if I look like a bat hanging down, please make sure they know it was me so they didn’t think it was a stunt double.’ It was hard,” Lopez once said in an interview with E! News.
“The one great benefit is having a pole in our master bedroom for six months,” Rodriguez also quipped.
Lopez also confided that there was a certain level of freedom playing a stripper that she never experienced in a movie before.
“I’m used to being on stage in sexy costumes, but I have three layers of tights and fishnets and a bodysuit,” Lopez once told S (via The Irish Times). “It was a brand new feeling to come out practically naked, in front of all those men — 300 extras hooting and hollering — and dance for money. There’s something liberating and empowering about it, but you’re really out there, physically, emotionally and psychologically.”
Lopez’s hard work for the movie paid off. It was highly praised as one of her best performances. Although she didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for the role, she was closer to one than she’d ever been. Given how much Lopez believed in Hustlers, its success was enough to celebrate.
“I did Hustlers for no money and I produced it and thought this could be a great movie. And you know what, if it wins, I win,” Lopez said in an interview with Variety. “And so you put your heart and soul into it and then you see what happens. And so when something like this happens, you’re like, ‘Yay, okay, it went well.’”
