Jennifer Lopez Lost 'This Is Me... Now' Movie Star Due to His Friendship With Marc Anthony

Jennifer Lopez got real about her love life in This Is Me... Now: A Love Story – to the point that actor Anthony Ramos actually turned down a role in the movie. One scene in the new movie shows J. Lo on the phone with someone who is strongly implied to be Ramos. He explains that he has to bow out of the movie because of his close friendship with Lopez's ex-husband, Marc Anthony.

"I didn't know that you and Marc were good friends, I didn't know that," Lopez says in the clip. "But that's nice." Lopez went on to reassure Ramos that his role wouldn't have been offensive to Anthony, saying: "He's the father of my kids, obviously. I'm never going to do anything that's going to really pinpoint him out, but it is very meta. It's kind of about the 20-year journey between that last album and this album, and a lot of things happened. There were a lot of relationships that I was in. The thing you're playing is representative of many relationships, not one specific relationship."

This Is Me... Now is Lopez's new studio album, which debuted on Friday Feb. 16 with the accompanying film dropping on Prime Video. According to a report by PEOPLE, Ramos would have starred in the scene "Rebound," including the music video for the new song by the same title. The scene depicts Lopez's character in a toxic relationship, and she dances with her partner in a glass house as it shatters around them. Ropes continually manifest to pull the two dancers back together. Ramos was replaced with dancer Gilbert Saldivar.

It seemed to be Ramos' decision to sidestep this conflict of interest altogether rather than put Lopez, Anthony or himself in an awkward position. Lopez and Anthony were married from 2004 to 2011 and have two children together, and the movie definitely tackles their relationship in its storyline. It's unclear when and how Ramos and Anthony became friends, but they have been spotted together at many high profile events in recent years.

This Is Me... Now is a play on the title of one of Lopez's previous albums, This is Me... Then. It focuses mainly on her love life and her response to public scrutiny as a celebrity. It also ties many of its threads together with her reunion with Ben Affleck. The album is available now on most major music streaming platforms. The movie, This Is Me... Now: A Love Story is streaming now on Prime Video.