When Hustlers hit theaters last fall, it was met with huge acclaim -- and some serious Oscar buzz for its star, Jennifer Lopez. But then award season rolled around and she was ignored for many of the movie industry’s most prestigious accolades. And Jennifer Lopez just opened up for the first time about how it felt to be snubbed.
In an hour-long conversation with Oprah during the mogul’s 2020 Vision Tour, Jennifer Lopez got real about a variety of topics in both her career and her personal life. But according to The Hollywood Reporter, she made herself particularly vulnerable when she was asked about being left out of the running for the Oscars this year:
I was sad, I was a little sad because there was a lot of buildup to it. There were so many articles, I got so many good notices — more than ever in my career — and there was a lot of 'She’s going to get nominated for an Oscar, it’s going to happen, if it doesn’t you’re crazy.' I’m reading all the articles going, 'Oh my god, could this happen?' And then it didn’t and I was like 'Ouch,' it was a little bit of a letdown. Also I felt like my whole team — most of my team has been with me for years, 20, 25 years — and I think they had a lot of hopes on that and they wanted it too, so I felt like I let everyone down a little bit.
Jennifer Lopez said after being snubbed for Hustlers, she did some soul searching, particularly with regards to how her disappointment fit into the context of the rest of her life:
I had to re-examine like 'Why do you do this, what are you so sad about right now? You just had the most amazing year of your life — you just had the biggest opening of a movie in your career, you just walked the runway in Milan and had a fashion moment, you’re doing the Super Bowl in a couple of weeks, what is it?'
It seems like she eventually figured out that she was having a normal human response to a let down, and she quickly figured out how to move on in a healthy way:
And you want people’s validation. You want people to say you did a good job, and I realized, 'No you don’t need that, you do this because you love it.' ... I don't need this award right here to tell me that I am enough.
Despite being denied an Oscars nomination, Jennifer Lopez definitely has reason to celebrate the start of another strong year. Her Super Bowl performance with Shakira, while controversial, reminded viewers that she’s still a tour de force performer -- she even put the pole dancing moves she learned for Hustlers to good use one more time. And it’s clear she has no signs of letting an award show snub slow her down.
