How Jennifer Lopez Reacted to Being Slapped by Leah Remini in an Unscripted Film Scene
Jennifer Lopez once recruited one of her close friends Leah Remini for the feature Second Act. When they worked together, Remini felt so comfortable around Lopez that she improvised a scene and slapped her co-star.
Jennifer Lopez cast her friend Leah Remini in ‘Second Act’
Lopez and Remini were already good friends years before they collaborated on Second Act. The 2018 romcom saw Lopez playing an older woman trying to launch her corporate career. She personally helped recruit the King of Queens star for the role. Remini confided she wasn’t genuinely a fan of doing movies. But she did Second Act without even looking at the script due to her friend being involved.
“Her producing partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, who also was one of the writers on the movie, literally texted me and said, ‘Hey do you want to do a movie with Jen?’ And the next text was [from Jennifer]: ‘Hey baby! Let’s do this together. It’ll be so much fun!’ I was just like, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t even know what it was,” Remini once told Entertainment Weekly.
Remini asserted that Lopez’s presence made her feel right at home.
“When I’ve done a few films here and there it’s like, eight hours of waiting and two minutes of acting…. As far as movies go, it was fun because I didn’t have the same nerves I would’ve had working without my friend,” she said.
Because of their bond, Remini confided that they were a bit too comfortable around each other when performing. Eventually, their real-life friendship helped influence their characters’ relationship in Second Act.
“A lot of it was improvised. Her reaction is always funny because that’s her reaction to me; she rolls her eyes a lot if I grab her boob or annoy her, and that makes me laugh,” she said regarding their performance. “Annoying her makes me laugh, so I’d do different things in different takes, so you’re seeing her real reactions. The slapping scene, I do that to her in real life before a performance. I say, ‘Who’s the champ?’ But this time I decided I was going to slap her, and she slapped me back so hard it actually made me cry from laughter because I didn’t tell her I was going to do those things.”
“When you have a real relationship with somebody, you can’t write this stuff. I’m comfortable with her; I’m used to cuddling up to her, to grabbing her arm when we walk, and she’s used to grabbing my arm when we walk. There are little things [in here] where you go, ‘This is our relationship,'” Remini added.
Leah Remini secretly hoped that Jennifer Lopez would be ugly when they first met
Remini and Lopez have a long history with each other that dates back to 2004. Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Remini confided what linked she and Lopez together in the first place.
“I was friends with Marc Anthony, and then he started dating Jennifer, and he was doing a film. I went to the premiere and he said, ‘You have to meet Jennifer!’ And he was telling Jennifer, ‘You have to meet Leah and Angelo [Pagan],’ my husband,” Remini said.
Remini quipped that she hoped Lopez wouldn’t look as glamorous as she normally appeared to be. But Lopez only lived up to her reputation according to the veteran.
“So, we went to the premiere hoping she was gonna be ugly in real life,” she said. “And then, when I was approaching her, I was like, ‘I hope it’s the lighting. Maybe she just looks good in here,’ and as I got closer I was like, ‘Oh damn, there’s a lot of light right here and she looks really pretty.“
Lopez agreed that the two immediately clicked afterwards.
“It was one of those instant chemistry things, where you just feel like, ‘I love this person. I love being around this person. This person makes me laugh,'” Lopez added. “She’s cool and we also have very similar upbringings. That’s why we work well together.”
