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Super Bowl LIV’s Halftime Show was filled with glitter, good pop music and costume changes. J-Lo’s daughter even got a mini solo, which you may have seen if you were watching carefully. However, one of the most notable moments at the Miami show came when Jennifer Lopez showed off her skill set on the stripper pole for her performance of “Waiting for Tonight,” relying on the muscle memory she developed filming Hustlers, which came out last year.
The moment was a big one, prompting one of my coworkers to call it "magic" and myriad people on the Internet to point out that one does not just learn to strip for an extended sequence and then let all of that work just fall by the wayside.
If you missed the moment, it featured J-Lo not just standing near a pole but actually doing acrobatics and it was impressive, particularly given that Hustlers actually filmed in March of 2019, meaning it’s been nearly a year since she got into tip-top pole dancing shape. Yet, she can still do this:
Jennifer Lopez is usually fit, but for Hustlers, she previously shared her journey to get in shape for the film, stating she felt her character Ramona needed to have a moment where she did a believable stripping act in order for the movie to work. So she got in shape, facing bruises and other injuries during the process. In particular, Lopez spent considerable time making sure Ramona could get upside down on the pole.
The work paid off and not just in Jennifer Lopez’s sick bikini body following the gig. In the movie, viewers see Jennifer Lopez do a big dance to Fiona Apple’s popular song “Criminal" in which she also does her own moves on the pole; it's a moment that inspires Constance Wu's Destiny to move forward with stripping and sets off a chain of events leading to eventual crime. (As an aside, Fiona Apple was into it and says she generally lends out the song when people ask to use it.) If you haven’t seen Hustlers, the movie is out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital already and the scene can be viewed curtesy of Universal Pictures.
A lot of people believe Jennifer Lopez is really believable as Ramona, and it was considered by some to be a snub when she didn’t get an Academy Awards nod for playing the character in last year's female-driven movie. But at least all of that work eventually paid off in other places. That was one heck of a halftime show and we got to see Shakira on the drums to boot! Not everyone loved the pole dancing moment, for sure, but what did you think about the Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show?
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