Jennifer Lopez Shares What She Told Ben Affleck to Make New Movie Get Made

Jennifer Lopez is sharing how her ex-husband Ben Affleck helped bring her first movie-musical to fruition.

When Lopez, 56, appeared on the Sunday, Sept. 28 episode of CBS News Sunday Morning, the actress noted that Affleck, 53, and his production company Artists Equity helped finance her dream project, Kiss of the Spider Woman. “He is,” Lopez said, when asked about Affleck’s role as an executive producer on the film. “The movie wouldn’t have been made if it wasn’t for him and Artists Equity. That is right, and I will always give him that credit.”

During their two-year marriage (Lopez filed for divorce on Aug. 20, 2024), Affleck and his longtime friend and producing partner Matt Damon worked with Lopez to bring Kiss of the Spider Woman, an adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical, to the big screen. Lopez is also an executive producer on the project.

When asked if Affleck “was pushing” for Lopez to take a role in the movie, she replied, “No, because they financed it.” She added, “I told him, ‘This is a role that I was born to play,’ and I wanted to do it, and he said ‘Okay,’ and he helped make it happen.” 

Kiss of the Spider Woman is not the only movie Affleck and Lopez worked on together during their marriage. Damon and Affleck also produced Lopez’s 2024 boxing biopic Unstoppable, in which she played the mother of real-life wrestler Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome). That movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024, which Affleck skipped in the wake of their divorce.

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Lopez’s Kiss of the Spider Woman made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

“Valentín (Luna), a political prisoner, shares a cell with Molina (Tonatiuh), a window dresser convicted of public indecency,” an official synopsis for the movie reads. “The two form an unlikely bond as Molina recounts the plot of a Hollywood musical starring his favorite silver screen diva, Ingrid Luna (Lopez).”

At the Sundance premiere of Kiss of the Spider Woman, Lopez got emotional and said during a Q&A appearance, “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life.”

“When you talk about the importance of musicals, the reason that I even wanted to be in this business was because my mom would sit me in front of the TV … we’d come on once a year, West Side Story on Thanksgiving,” she recalled.

“I remember I was just mesmerized,” she added at Sundance. “I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ That was always my goal. And this is the first time I actually got to do it. This crowd made my dream come true.”

Kiss of the Spider Woman is in theaters Oct. 10.