When Jennifer Lopez calls, you reply, which is how Dave Meyers ended up directing the singer’s bold new movie This Is Me … Now: A Love Story. The $20 million self-funded challenge is closely influenced by her bookend romance with Ben Affleck. Lopez was so certain of the film, which infuses music from her new album, it was arduous for Meyers to not get onboard.
“Jen’s the explanation it occurred. She wrote her personal verify. When folks doubted her, when pals doubted her about what she was doing, when her private folks doubted her — ‘What the hell are you doing, Jen?’ — she was identical to, I’ll die on my sword for what I consider in, and I consider on this,” Meyers tells Yahoo Leisure.
The film explores real love, self-love and failed romances, considered one of which depicts an abusive relationship as Lopez sings “Rebound,” a scene Meyers says was “robust” to movie. Lopez advised Yahoo that whereas sure themes within the film are rooted in fact, it is not totally autobiographical and is extra “meta.” However it was Lopez’s “unapologetic boldness to be weak” that made Meyers need to make this film — and he additionally had a imaginative and prescient for the movie.
“She’s such a scrutinized celeb, you understand?” Meyers says. “What can I provide to the scrutiny of the general public that may be sudden and one thing that they could discover attention-grabbing? What was actually loud in my thoughts was this concept of her vulnerability and her being sincere. Even me realizing her for all these years … it is a actually attention-grabbing alternative if she desires to open up about what she’s been by.”
Meyers talks to Yahoo Leisure about what was the “hardest” a part of filmmaking, Affleck’s inventive affect and the way they pulled off Tropic Thunder-inspired cameo.
How did you get entangled with Jennifer’s ardour challenge?
Jen recorded an album and was beginning to consider find out how to current it to the world. I [went to her house], Jen sang the document to me and talked a bit normally about what she’d been by and rekindling with Ben. I hadn’t seen her in awhile so we simply began speaking. … I began asking questions on what occurred the primary time with Ben. I acquired to listen to the music and this unguarded vulnerability.
The music is explosive. She’s an enormous star. Her love life is a big [topic] within the press. How can we make a spectacle that carries her reality and actually additionally carries the load of who she is as a star. It simply appeared like this reality spectacle expertise. Jen carries a singular means to know all of what we have been doing. She’s each an artist, an actress, a choreographer, you understand, in spirit. We have been in Ben’s workplace at 11:00 p.m. writing the script with the author. She was so concerned in probably the most lovely manner and was so out there regardless of her very busy schedule, it simply sort of acquired going
How concerned was Ben within the inventive course of? Did you get to listen to his perspective of their love story, too?
Ben didn’t open up with me particularly, though he did open up as a filmmaker with us. We might be within the workplace working and he would stroll in and provides us some enthusiasm or give us an exquisite speech about filmmaking or vulnerability or storytelling. That form of simply continued all over. He was like a mentor. I would wish to say he was a mentor to me, however I am certain he was mentoring Jen.
I believe Ben’s affect on this was that he was serving to information the boldness that Jen wanted to be concerned in writing, producing and assist her with a number of the territory that was new for her. On the identical time, Jen’s unapologetically assured in the case of the spectacle of Jen.
Ben is not straight featured within the movie. How intentional was that?
I [didn’t have] the dialog with Ben about excluding him, however it was a really robust feeling that I had and that Jen additionally had that this film cannot be about him and it by no means was speculated to be. At first [of the film] real love being ruined was a extremely nice premise to be like: Why did real love not work? Was it real love? Let’s undergo all these different guys and the experiences that she had and her finally eliminating the blokes and realizing she wanted to be alone, and occurring that solo journey and studying to be pleased with herself. That was actually the driving premise all the time from the start. We toyed with, does Ben present up in any respect on the finish?
Properly, he does present up in an sudden manner.
An early pitch that I had for the movie was that Ben was ever current. So he was all the time in disguise, displaying up. You recognize, there was an prolonged model of this movie within the early days of us writing it. There was this concept that he was an ever-present supply, virtually like a meta factor of he is all the time been there, however he isn’t there. Because it sort of went by the journey — we did not essentially do a number of characters with Ben, however we had this one character. It was truly the very first thing that we shot and so we had this nice efficiency from Ben and we thought would not or not it’s nice to have him pop up all through the movie? We ebbed and flowed with that and I believe it is a actually enjoyable manner to make use of Ben… We actually went arduous on the prosthetics. My inspiration for that was Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder.
The movie actually is sort of the spectacle, to make use of your phrase, and lots is packed into one hour. What was the hardest scene to movie out of your perspective?
There’s two scenes. The primary day of the shoot was the glass home, which is hard material [when she sings “Rebound.”] So right here we’ve this very anxious movie, and we’re very closely on inexperienced display, primarily to save cash, and Jen believed in it, however did not actually know what I used to be doing. So we have been taking pictures a really troublesome scene on day one, and it was only a arduous solution to begin the movie. Turned out to be nice.
The precise hardest filmmaking, I suppose, was the Zodiac council [played by Jane Fonda, Post Malone, Keke Palmer, Sofia Vergara and others.] They have been all shot individually over three months and we needed to chase schedules … the creativity of it feeling like a fluid dialog was one of many hardest issues to do.
You labored with Jennifer on a number of music movies greater than 20 years in the past, a few of which have been when she dated Ben for the primary time. What’s stayed the identical and what’s modified about her a long time later?
The identical is that she’s f***ing skilled as hell. She’s one of the best to work with in that regard and her staff is simply dialed. On this planet of music, that is truly a extremely large assertion. I’ve all the time appreciated that and it actually permits me as a inventive to plan that I can truly get what it’s that I need to get.
As for the place she is now: Primarily her unapologetic boldness to be weak. The judgment that she’s already realizing is gonna occur will not be one thing that, whereas it might hold her up some nights, it would not cease her from expressing herself. Capturing Jen on this second is simply such an exquisite time for me to realign along with her as a result of I actually like honesty. To have Jen, somebody who’s stored lots of her private life non-public, being prepared to speak about her ache and her journey in a weak manner was only a actually — I do not know that that is what I seen. Jen was very centered because the mogul that she is — very centered with Ben, very centered with life and along with her household, after which very centered with the manufacturing.
This Is Me … Now: A Love Story is streaming on Prime Video.
