Jennifer Lopez Reveals She Didn’t Get Paid for Starring in ‘Hustlers’

Jennifer Lopez recently starred in Hustlers as Ramona, a stripper who led a group of co-workers in a crime ring targeting their wealthy patrons, but for Lopez herself, money wasn’t her motivation. Speaking to GQ for the magazine’s Men of the Year issue, in which she was named Icon of the Year, the 50-year-old revealed that she participated in the project for free.

“I do things because I love them. I didn’t get paid a whole bunch of money for Hustlers,” she said in a video interview. “I did it for free and produced it. I bank on myself. That’s the Jenny From the Block. I do what I want, I do what I love. But it was kind of a really different mindset to get into to play Ramona.”

“This is our movie where we run s—,” she added. “They know it’s all women producers, women director, women writer, all women starring in it. And they kind of took ownership of that. We’ve been watching men take advantage of women in movies a long time. And so it was a fun kind of ride to see the tables turn.”

Hustlers had a $31.5 million opening weekend, and the film generated some Oscar buzz for Lopez for her performance as the group’s complex leader. The multi-hyphenate star explained that she was drawn to the film because of its subject matter, with the women at the center of the story taking money from men they believed were taking money from the rest of the world.

“The movies that I look for now, I’m looking for not just interesting and multilayered characters, which Ramona really was, but something that tells you about what’s going on in the culture,” she said. “So the whole idea of the Wall Street guys was interesting to me. These girls are cheating them, but these guys are cheating everybody! So what it says about that world, and men and women, and gender roles, all of that made me feel that this could be an interesting movie, as opposed to just a character piece.”

“One of the things I loved about Ramona was that she had her own set of morals and values,” Lopez added of her character. “They were skewed, from being in this world for a long time. Which was why she could be like, ‘F— them. These guys are scumbags. They’re not even gonna miss this money.’ Because when you’re around criminals, you become a little bit of a criminal. But I felt like Ramona was in many ways a good person. Whether she was doing great things or bad things, she was very clear about what she wanted and what her goals were.”

Photo Credit: Getty / Michael Tran