Jennifer Lopez Used Her Award Show Snubs as Inspiration Behind Her Acting Work in ‘Marry Me’

Despite her extensive film and music career, Jennifer Lopez has not won any of the most important international music prizes, such as the Grammy or the Oscars. Though she has had one Oscar nomination and a few Grammy nods, the singer—who is widely considered one of the most important singers in the world—has generally experienced massive snubs during award shows, reports The Things.

The singer may have used these snubs in her most recent film, Marry Me, in which she portrayed Kat, a celebrity with experiences akin to those of JLo. It's impossible to overlook how very similar they are. The actress has gone "through the ringer," so director Kat Coiro said in an Insider interview that she was "generous with her real-life experiences" when portraying the part.

Like Lopez, Kat Valdez, her fictional character, had a number of significant life events while in the spotlight. Like every famous person we know and love, she balanced her public and private lives while dealing with sorrow, poor job choices, and rejection from award shows. Although Lopez did not portray a character that had experiences akin to her own, she seems to have attempted to make a statement about the ills of celebrity in her role as Valdez.

During an interview on TODAY, Lopez stated that the film was “very meta for me.” Lopez further added, “This was the first time that I got to really take my own life because I have played a lot of different types of characters in all these different movies over the years, but this is the first time that it was as close to me.”

Only twice, in 2000 and 2001, did the singer get a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording; nevertheless, she was never the winner. She was also not awarded an Oscar in 2020, despite being considered for the film Hustlers, which generated mixed reviews from critics. The majority of JLo fans also think Marry Me is better than the 2019 comedy film. Fans and critics have long claimed that Lopez was a deserving candidate for the Grammy and Oscar awards, though she never managed to win these prizes. There are more similarities between JLo and Kat than their Grammy nominations.

During her appearance on The Ellen Show, Lopez opened up about these similarities. “It’s my life. She plays a recording artist, a person who does branding stuff. She has her own business. She is kind of a big superstar. She has been there [in the industry] for long. There is so much about it [the character], that is very much like me,” she explained.

During a Marry Me concert event too, JLo was heard saying, according to US Weekly, “This movie is personal for me… This came out of my own experience, the journey to the love of your life. Sometimes it has its ups and downs, unexpected twists and turns. But what I’ve learned is that you have to find yourself before you can find that person who’s going to complete the picture.”