Jennifer Lopez: “I only compete with myself”

Сегодня она — главный гость популярного шоу телеканала ABC. И назначила мне встречу… на парковке его лос-анджелесской студии. Уж не знаю, как ей удалось точно рассчитать время, когда после шоу она появится на этой парковке. Но факт: минута в минуту, в 15.00 открывается дверь съемочного павильона и выходят четыре телохранителя. А за ними она: белый свитер, черная юбка, туфли на каблуках 12… нет, все 15 см. Тонкая талия, элегантный изгиб бедра, идеальные ноги. Человек-пропорция, я бы сказала. Она пунктуальна и идеальна… Но идеальность оказывается обманчивой. «Слушайте, дорогая. Извините меня. Тут все так завертелось…» — она говорит быстро, а я быстро понимаю, что интервью срывается. И тут она неожиданно добавляет: «В общем, жду вас дома вечером. В восемь». — «Но я не знаю, куда ехать!» — «Поезжайте по 101-му фривею и сверните в 30-й съезд. Это просто!»

Psychologies: Have you ever felt trapped by your own fame?

Jennifer Lopez: Well no. I perceive my fame not as a desired goal, to which I finally came, but as something accompanying.

Accompanying what?

Дж. Л.: For what I really want. I will explain the difference. It’s just that the point for me is not to be a singer or actress, but to be as good a singer or actress as I can be. Reach the limit of yourself, your abilities, use them 100%, express yourself fully. The meaning for me is in this personal… how should I say… fulfillment, or something. And the rest – fame, big money – it’s all a fun by-product. The most important thing is to express what only I can express.

Have you always lived with this belief?

Дж. Л.: My parents thought I was crazy when I dropped out of college and told them that I was going to sing and dance professionally. They said, “Jenny, this is just stupid. None of the Latinos succeeded!” And it was true: not a single Latino had really big success in show business then. But this logic – “impossible, because it was not like this before” – I simply did not understand. And I did not pay attention at all to the fact that I was entering the zone of the greatest competition.

Why?

Дж. Л.: If I compete with someone, then only with myself – for the best myself … Then I left my parents, mortally quarreling with them.

Already at the zenith of your popularity, you released the song Jenny from the Block, where you claimed that you are still the same “Jenny from the Block” that you were 20 years ago. And then they didn’t really believe you …

Дж. Л.: Logically, no one with millions of dollars can claim that he has saved himself. Damn it, who is happier with a million dollar fortune?! The greatest happiness is just not to let external circumstances change you beyond recognition. And I just recognize myself. The one from the Bronx, from the Puerto Rican neighborhood. I recognize in myself all the best and worst traits that the Bronx laid in me.

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For example, which ones?

Дж. Л.: Ну, я вообще-то несколько бесцеремонна. Есть во мне некоторое панибратство. Я прямая. Я уважаю социальный успех — а это все-таки комплекс, о человеке нельзя судить по степени его успешности. Я люблю знать о людях много — это тоже из Бронкса, в нашем квартале все про всех все знали: кто с кем, кто от кого, кто у кого. Я и сохранила привычку неосознанно собирать информацию о людях. Особенно личного характера. Стыдоба, но факт! Но я никогда не вмешиваюсь ни в чьи дела — опять Бронкс, там жили тесновато, да и по правилам гетто — сгрудившись, так что известная дистанция в отношениях была штукой необходимой.

But has anything changed since then?

J.L. Yes, and I myself noted that something important has changed. One girl, she has been working with me for three years, told me about her lover. That they have been together for a long time and she would already like a more stable relationship, and he lives in his parents’ house – it is more convenient for him – and nothing portends a life together. She asked me for advice on what to do. And I – I didn’t expect from myself – suddenly said that she needed to get pregnant from him and everything would fall into place. I took it and said. And this is my advice … First, it is completely against my beliefs. I advise a person to put another in forced circumstances, to pin him to the wall. To carry out some kind of violence on him. Secondly, he is against my habit of not interfering in someone else’s life. I am against all this! But experience, feminine and worldly, pushes me, says: tact is not the best adviser. And if a person trusts me, and I treat a person sincerely, then I should forget about tact or high principles. Before, I would never have done this – I would have kept my distance to the last. And now no.

Do you think this is called the female experience?

Дж. Л.: Это опыт пожившего человека. Причем на полную катушку — интенсивно, насыщенно. Да — и опыт женщины. Когда у тебя есть дети… ты на все смотришь под другим углом — на свои отношения с миром, с мужчинами. Я сказала, что той девушке надо завести ребенка еще и потому, что изменилась бы ее собственная система координат.

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How has yours changed?

Дж. Л.: With the birth of children, I was no longer number one on my own priority list. Now they are number one. I can’t even imagine how I could perform – and then I had a world concert tour – almost until the seventh month of pregnancy! Now I would never do that: all my thoughts are that it will be good, convenient, great for children. I can’t even part with them – they travel with me all over the world. Max and Emmy were born by c-section, and after the operation, I refused painkillers – well, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, never any drugs, so no painkillers either. And because of the pain, I could not even take them in my arms. A nanny appeared – only for 6 weeks, but appeared. That’s when this horror seized me: they will love her, but not me. On a sober look – nonsense, well, how can a creature of two weeks of age love there? But I thought it could! He will love the nanny, but not me. It might have seemed like I was having a tantrum, but in fact, this is how I came to the discovery of great importance – that it is possible to love someone more than yourself! Mark said: in the form of such emotions, a hormonal storm flows in you. But I quite consciously felt: I should be with my children, this love is the most important thing in the world. The hormonal storm passed, but this belief remained … Probably, after the birth of children, I finally matured. Before that, I lived as if in anticipation of a different life, everything was preparing for some wonderful “tomorrow”. And the children made me understand that “tomorrow” has come, that we live in a long “today”. That it is impossible to experience greater love than for them … And then I made another discovery. An amazing sense of guilt. Guilt for the fact that you cannot hold your child by the hand, always in your arms, at every single moment of life. I still feel this feeling, although the children grow up and soon they will not even need my presence. This is some kind of original maternal instinct in me. Animal. But I like the animal nature that we have. It is our most sincere part.

Still, something ambiguous is heard in your advice to that girl. A condescending attitude towards a man as a controlled being, or something …

Дж. Л.: Что вы! Ни в коем случае! Просто не грех иногда, знаете, взять на себя роль Судьбы. И я теперь точно знаю, что мужчины — в большинстве своем — любят детей от любимых женщин. И им безразлично, их это дети по крови или нет. Они легко оставляют своих детей, чтобы любить, так сказать, чужих. И эти чужие для них становятся более своими.

Are you sure that you do not harbor any resentment towards the opposite sex?

Дж. Л.: Not! I don’t even think it’s that different. And the main people in my life who had a huge impact on me are men. My dad. He is from the category of holy men – who wholeheartedly care for a woman, are not able to upset her even fleetingly. He is so devoted to his women – his mother and us, three daughters. And each of us knew that the father is always, under any circumstances, our support. Once I left the house, slamming the door, but I still felt inside myself that it was make-believe … Another important man for me is my ex-husband Mark (Mark Anthony, musician and singer. – Approx. ed.). He is the father of the main joy in my life, my children. Even after the divorce, I have no resentment against him. We parted ways by mutual agreement, although…

Divorce is tough though.

Дж. Л.: Yes. We were together for 7 years, and I simply did not think of this divorce. I grew up in a close-knit family and, it seemed, finally found my family … But somehow everything went wrong, we stopped understanding each other. And here is the divorce. I did not sink into depression for a long time only because I categorically do not want to belong to those women who can lie under the covers all day long, covering themselves with their heads and nursing their pain. For some time I was still depressed, but I knew for sure that I had to go through it and move on. If I had not felt like an adult, becoming a mother, I might not have survived. Divorce is, in general, a thing for adults.

Your current partner is 18 years younger than you. Is this difference noticeable to you?

Дж. Л.: Big difference, yes. But somehow for me it means nothing. We do a common thing: Casper is the choreographer of my show, we are interested together, we always have topics for conversation, we have common interests. We are together simply because we like being together. And if people break up, is it for some reason, say, because of the difference in age?

Do you think you have already found the formula for a strong relationship?

Дж. Л.: Durable? There is nothing stronger than love. Although it is strong, it is also fragile, hard, but also brittle… The rest is only ourselves, our effort to accept the other. There are no perfect people, and the one you love is not perfect either. You just have to accept its imperfection. Once and for all, agree that you will have to disagree with the one you love. Do not agree with him, with some of his features, with what he can sometimes be. This for me is both the meaning and the guarantee of a more or less happy relationship. And then, of course, I am fully aware: if a man appears in my life, then he fills some kind of gap in me – the lack of some part of me. I believe that an indissoluble bond is possible between a man and a woman, forever, until the death of both. Of course I do – but I just have no right not to believe in fairy tales! I myself am an example of how fairy tales come true in reality. A girl from a Puerto Rican family, a Latina from the criminal Bronx … But now you are interviewing me!