And they’re not the only ones that Lopez asked to be in her epic musical movie.
This Is Me … Now, Jennifer Lopez’s new music movie extravaganza, has almost too many celebrity cameos to count, with appearances from Derek Hough, Fat Joe, Jane Fonda, Post Malone, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Kim Petras, and Keke Palmer, but that long list could have had even more names. In Prime Video’s new documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which chronicles the process behind Lopez’s magnum opus, fans got a peek at who could have been in the film and part of the star’s Zodiac Council.
Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande were both on the list and, according to the documentary, were either too busy to participate or respectfully declined. Other names that were floated around included Snoop Dogg, Lizzo, Jason Momoa, and Jennifer Coolidge. Vanessa Hudgens was also approached to be a part of the movie, as well as Khloé Kardashian, but neither managed to get involved.
Even with that list of Hollywood greats, Lopez told Entertainment Weekly that she doesn’t feel like anyone specific “got away.”
“They were giving me a list of all these amazing people, and I was like, ‘Yes, I like all of those people, but that’s not what I want,'” she said. “My first people were Jenifer Lewis and Jane Fonda, and they were like, ‘Wait, we don’t get it. This is like music. This is young.’ And I was like, ‘No. This is a council of people who I want to be very diverse. I want all different kinds of people.”’
“These are people with all different personality traits from all different walks of life,” Lopez told EW. “But they all have something that affected me in some way — their philosophy on life, on love, on the universe, on music. That was the list that I made.”
Lopez went on to say that she stuck with her gut feeling and was elated with how her project turned out. She noted that people involved with This Is Me … Now suggested celebrities that just didn’t fit in with what Lopez imagined and she was grateful that she stayed true to herself and her vision.
“The casting director and the other producers came in and they were like, ‘How about this person? This person’s not available.’ And they started saying all these people,” she finished. “If you see me sitting there, that’s not what I want. What I want is people who represent a certain thing, who could understand what I’m trying to do here. And that’s what it took, because they needed to trust me. At the end of the day, I think it was a big leap of faith for some of them.”