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We are days away from the premieres of Marry Me, Jenifer Lopez’s latest film. The movie, packed with original songs by JLo and global Latino music star Maluma, will arrive this Valentine’s Day with the Newyorican singer and actress starring as musical superstar Kat Valdez and actor Owen Wilson as Charlie Gilbert.
Wilson plays the role of a math teacher who agrees to marry Kat and then get to know each other in an unlikely romance about two different people searching for something real. Marry Me is a modern-day love story about the spotlight, marriage, and social media.
© AgenciesThe movie follows the life of Kat Valdez and her relationship with hot new music supernova Bastian, portrayed by Maluma, who is also making his feature-film debut. The story gets interesting when Kat and Bastian’s hit single, “Marry Me,” climbs the charts while their romance collapses.
To share more details about the film, including how two people from such different worlds bridge the gulf between them and build a place where they both belong; Jennifer Lopez, Maluma, and Owen Wilson sat down with the press in a virtual conference.
“There’s there’s a beautiful journey here,” assures Lopez. “Once Charlie comes into her life and really changes her forever. Changes her perspective and ideas of being caught. Sometimes you feel kind of caught like, ‘okay, I’m trapped in this fame. I’m trapped in this life. This is all I can do,’” the star said. “And I really don’t get to have a life like everybody else or love like everybody else. And I think what Owen’s character teaches her is that she can and that it is possible, and that there is hope for her and she could have a real love and a real hope.”
© AgenciesLopez said that “there’s a lot” of her in Kat and vice versa. “This wasn’t a role where I had to research what it was to be a famous recording artist. I think the difficult part was the idea of showing how when something goes wrong, and you suffer a heartbreak like this in front of the whole world, and the media kind of goes to town on you,” she said. “In some of those moments, even with scenes with me and Owen where [his character] is asking like, ‘don’t you want to just give up on the whole [fame]?”
During the conference call with HOLA! USA and other media outlets, Wilson said that it could also be believable despite the unlikely story; it can also be credible. “I think you’d get a lot of character information just from the names,” the actor said, referring to the differences between his and Maluma’s role in the film. “Charlie is sort of an ordinary man of the people. And then Bastian is this singing sensation and engaged to Kat Valdez. Through circumstances, somehow [my character] wind up at their concert and, the next thing you know, [Charlie] is on stage, getting married. It was, it’s such a leap of faith that when you read it, you’re kind of I wonder how that’s going to work. But yet in the movie, sort of everything that leads up to it. I think you kind of go along with it. I feel it was kind of believable.”
© AgenciesMaluma said that he loved playing Bastian because there are similarities between them. “The character is great, perfect for my first movie. I feel pretty related to the character because we have these similar things. We both love music, touring, and performing,” he said, clarifying that the only thing he can’t relate to is how Bastian treated Kat. “I don’t really like that Bastian,” he noted. “Because he is a douchebag. He did an awful thing.”
Besides that detail, the Colombian singer said he “enjoyed a lot the experience of being in the movie” and “making the music was was beautiful too.”
For the film, Lopez also decided to make a soundtrack album, something that she had never done before but still found gratifying. “That was a first for me. [It] was such a pleasure, like my two worlds coming together,” the multi-hyphenate star said. “But making the album was great because it allowed me to input into where, when, and what these musical moments would be for this character.”
© AgenciesAccording to the JLo Beauty founder, there’s nobody who understood the character more than she did. “So picking the songs for the moments was such a pleasure for me and then to have Maluma filling in the blanks for his character — he did such a great job with the two songs that he did,” Lopez added.
Jennifer said that although she is unaware of when she would release new music with Maluma, the experience of recording with him is memorable. “Right after the movie, we did ‘Pa’ ti’ and ‘Lonely’ which ‘Pa’ Ti’ ended up being in the movie, and we did them kind of as Kat and Bastian after we have finished the album,” the star revealed. “But the album ended up coming up before because the movie was pushed back because of the pandemic,” she added.
“I think we’ll always look for opportunities to work together. We have a good musical chemistry,” Lopez assures. “‘Marry me’ is one of my favorite duets I’ve ever done with anyone, and he is a great songwriter and a great interpreter, and I would love to be able to do more together.”
© AgenciesThe film also stars John Bradley (HBO’s Game of Thrones), Michelle Buteau (Netflix’s Michelle Buteau: Welcome to Buteaupia), and Utkarsh Ambudkar (Mulan).
Marry Me is directed by Kat Coiro (FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Netflix’s Dead to Me) from a screenplay by John Rogers (TNT’s The Librarians) and Tami Sagher (NBC’s 30 Rock) and Harper Dill (Fox’s The Mick) and is based on the graphic novel by Bobby Crosby.
The film is produced by Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas (Hustlers, Maid in Manhattan), Jennifer Lopez, Benny Medina (Hustlers, NBC’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), and John Rogers. The film’s executive producers are Alex Brown, Willie Mercer, Pamela Thur, and J.B. Roberts.
