Jennifer Lopez reflects on her early Hollywood days: ‘Weren’t a lot of roles for Latinas’

Jennifer Lopez has reflected on her early days in Hollywood and opened up about how she broke “moulds” in her path of acting.

The 55-year-singer, while speaking to Variety’s Award Circuits podcast, revealed that she heard “someone say that positive change is slow”.

According to Lopez, it is but as long as we’re moving in the right direction, that’s what matters.

“When I started, there weren’t a lot of roles for Latinas,” the actress said.

I was auditioning for parts with accents and stereotypes. I kept thinking, ‘Why can’t I just play a romantic lead? Why can’t I be the girl next door?’ That belief—that conviction that I belonged — was what helped me break those moulds,” said the Unstoppable actress.

The singer-actress, who rose to prominence after playing a leading role of tragic pop singer in the 1997 biopic Selena, admitted that she only really does it for the “love of the art” above anything else.

“I do it for the love of the art,” Lopez noted, adding, “It’s not about the awards or the accolades.”

According to the Atlas singer, it’s about telling stories that matter.

“Stories that make people feel seen, stories that inspire, she went on to say, before concluding, “That’s what keeps me going.”