Embed from Getty Images
People Magazine has a new panel interview with Jennifer Lopez conducted at a screening of her upcoming film, Second Act. It features Lopez’s real life best friend, Leah Remini, and also costars Milo Ventimiglia and Vanessa Hudgens. It’s about a woman from a working class background who gets a high powered executive job thanks to a fake resume. You can see the trailer below, it made me laugh a few times. I doubt I’ll be seeing this in the theater are it’s out the end of December and there are so many other movies I want to see then. It looks like a cute rental though, and it’s the kind of film that Lopez does well. She has broad appeal and she comes across as genuine on screen. Lopez is one of those rare celebrities who can dance, sing and act, but it didn’t all come easily to her. She told the panel that she had self doubt at the beginning of her career when she took critics seriously. She then decided that she wasn’t going to pay attention to that, she told herself she was good at everything and she focused on working hard. After that it all came together for her. This is really good advice.

“You know, I’ve really become — and I think from being in this business, I don’t let the opinion of others really influence how I think about myself,” Lopez told the event’s moderator, Full Picture CEO Desiree Gruber. “And that took a long time. Because in the early party of my career, I did, and it made me feel really bad about myself.”

While the singer and actress was experiencing massive success with her debut film Selena and her debut album On the 6, Lopez said she received criticism that made her doubt her talents.

“I’m killing it, and then everybody’s like, ‘She can’t sing, she can’t dance, she can’t act, she’s just some pretty face or her butt is big’ or whatever they were saying about me and I started thinking, ‘Yeah, that’s true,’” she recalled. “And it really hurt me for a long time.”

Despite feeling down about the backlash, Lopez she “just kept going.”

“I just couldn’t allow myself to let that become who I was. I was like, ‘No, I’m gonna make another record, I’m gonna make another song, I’m gonna make another movie,’” she shared. “‘I’m a great actress, I’m a great singer, a great dancer, I’m great at this stuff! And I’m gonna keep going!’ And I did. And that’s all I did. I just kept going. And I just started working harder and harder than everybody else.”

“I started believing in myself,” she added. “I started believing in the fact that I wasn’t an imposter, that I wasn’t a fake.”

[From People]

Lopez is drawing parallels to her Second Act character, Maya, whose journey involves believing in herself and her abilities. I didn’t know the term “imposter syndrome” until Viola Davis talked about it last year, but I was knew the concept of course. You think you’re not good enough to be successful or that other people are better than you are. I really like the simplicity in Lopez’s message and it’s a powerful one. She also said that she makes sure she talks to herself kindly, like a good roommate. I actually try to do this. Whenever I start to feel badly about myself or if I’m fixated on something I think “what would you tell your best friend?” and try to consider it from that perspective. I would never talk to a friend the way I talk to myself sometimes.

Here’s the Second Act trailer. I keep think it’s called Sister Act.

Sometimes you can believe your own hype and need a reality check though.

Photos credit: Getty, WENN and Backgrid