'The Mother': Jennifer Lopez 'Is a Badass' On and Off-Screen, Director Niki Caro Gushes (Exclusive)

The Mother director Niki Caro wants people to know how much of a "badass" Jennifer Lopez is both on and off-screen. Prior to the Friday, May 12 premiere of the Netflix action film starring Lopez as a retired assassin, Caro opened up to PopCulture.com about working with the superstar singer/actress, teasing that Lopez's many fans have "never seen her like this" before. 

The Grammy winning-artist is "a global icon for a reason," added the director, who has made waves herself behind the camera for films including Whale Rider and Mulan. "She is a badass on and off the screen," Caro told PopCulture of working with Lopez both as the star of the film as well as a producer. "It was amazing. She's a great collaborative partner. ... And she's a mother. We both have teenage children, so we had really similar instincts for the material, and so it was just a joy, really."

Striking the right balance of "thrilling action" and heart was important to Caro, "because right at the soul and the spine of this movie, it's a love letter from a mother to a child." All of Lopez's action sequences were built around the idea of staying true to her character's history as a combat veteran and skilled sniper, which the director said made the film feel "very real and very engaging."

This meant a lot of training for Lopez and her fellow stars Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick, and Gael García Bernal. "They were really diligent and responsible at training well and none more so, I think [than] Jennifer, obviously," Caro told PopCulture. "For her, because of her experiences, a lifetime of performance and dance and choreography, that was pretty effortless for her to learn the fight choreography." She added, "What was amazing [was] you can see in her videos of her training, is how much intensity and focus and passion she brings even to the training, the rehearsal days. ... She's incredible." The Mother premieres Friday, May 12 on Netflix.