Jennifer Lopez was asked to strip by director

14 November 2019

Jennifer Lopez refused to take her top off for a director early in her career.

Jennifer Lopez

The 50-year-old singer-and-actress was unimpressed when the unnamed filmmaker asked her to strip during a costume fitting, branding the man "crazy", and is thankful she felt able to stand up for herself.

Speaking to fellow stars including Lupita Nyong'o and Scarlett Johansson for The Hollywood Reporter's Drama Actress roundtable, she recalled: "He wanted to see my boobs. And I was like, 'We're not on set'.

"I said no, I stood up for myself. But it was so funny because I remember being so panicked in the moment.

"There was [a female costume designer] in the room and he says this and I said no..

"Luckily a little bit of the Bronx came out, and I was like, 'I don't have to show you my -- No. On the set, you see them.' "

The 'On the Floor' hitmaker felt it was important to set a "little boundary" early in the project and was pleased the director later apologised.

She added: "That's the thing, because if you give in, in that moment, all of a sudden that person is off and running, thinking they can do whatever they want.

"And because I put up a little boundary right there and said no, he laid off and then later on apologised.

"But the minute he walked out of the room, the costume designer was like, 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry that just happened.' "

On the set of her latest movie, stripping saga 'Hustlers', Jennifer had a much more comfortable time thanks to the presence of a "comfort coach" who kept things professional.

She said: "On 'Hustlers', we had a comfort coach. It was basically somebody who understood that world and said, 'These things are okay,' and, 'These things are not okay.'

"And made everybody on the set comfortable with what they were doing, because we had a lot of women who were half-dressed or naked, topless."

However, Jennifer still felt exposed and "terrified" when it came to shooting her opening dance routine.

She recalled: "Then when I was there and I had the dental floss on, I'm out there in a way I've never been.

"I have my robe on and there's 300 extras, all men. I think that was putting myself out there, in a way, deeper than I had ever done physically and emotionally, and playing a character that was that unapologetic in so many ways. It was so different from who I was."