LOS ANGELES — Actress-singer Jennifer Lopez struggles to fight back tears as her
film ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ premiered at the Sundance Film Festival with a
standing ovation.
JLo, who was dressed in a sparkling, webbed-up gown and
sky-high black heels, told the audience at Park City’s Eccles Theatre that
starring in the musical adaptation fulfilled a lifelong dream, reports
‘Variety’.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life”, she said.
“The reason I even wanted to be in this business is because my mom would sit me
in front of the TV and (‘West Side Story’) would come on once a year. I was
mesmerized and was like, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ This is the first time I
actually got to do it. This man made my dream come true”.
As per ‘Variety’, she referred to director Bill Condon, who
has become a preeminent filmmaker for movie musicals, having worked on
“Chicago,” “Dreamgirls,” Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” remake and “The
Greatest Showman”.
This premiere marks Condon’s first return to Sundance since
1998’s period drama “Gods and Monsters”, starring Ian McKellen and Brendan
Fraser.
“I came here 27 years ago. The experience of launching that
movie here is something I’ll never forget”, he said, adding that “‘Kiss of the
Spider Woman’ is a movie I started thinking about all those years ago. It’s a
movie I’ve wanted to make my entire life”.
‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’, set mostly in an Argentinian
prison during the “Dirty War”, follows queer window dresser Luis Molina
(Tonatiuh), who is serving time for having sex with a man. To escape the
horrors of imprisonment, he regales his new cellmate, a political prisoner
named Valentin Arregui (Diego Luna), with vivid stories about the cinematic
exploits of his favorite screen diva, Ingrid Luna (JLo).
