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That's the Cliffs Notes version of the new Jennifer Lopez movie, Maid in Manhattan, but, in a madcap case of life imitating art, it's also The Jennifer Lopez Story as it was playing out all around New York City last summer.
On a sweltering 90-degree day in mid-July, the woman with the world's most famous posterior (clad in a gray maid's uniform) is sitting in a park beside a midtown Manhattan church with her producer and former agent, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, pondering the insanity of it all. "J.Lo lonely! Hello! Did you see that one?" Lopez shouts, amazed at that morning's New York Post item quoting a "pal" of her ex, Sean "P.Diddy" Combs. "They hear a story and they just put it in. I didn't even know I was going to the Hamptons this weekend! But I was calling people to come with me! Cause I'm lonely!" She laughs. "They basically said you were calling anybody you ever met," says Goldsmith-Thomas, also laughing, "and nobody wanted to!", "I'm calling them nonstop, no less!" Lopez howls, picking upsteam. "Nonstop! You're a loser!" Goldsmith-Thomas fires back. Across the street, a photographer snaps the women sitting together. "This will be in the paper tomorrow," Goldsmith-Thomas says, only half joking.
These long time friends clearly relished the irony: It would be only a matter of days before it was confirmed that J.Lo was anything but lonely, thanks to Ben Affleck, her costar in the recently wrapped Gigli and soon-to-be-shot Jersey Girl. Within a week, the paparazzi would descend on the set to catch him coming out of her trailer. Just as they had swarmed weeks before, during reports of her separation from husband Cris Judd. And just as the fictional press was chasing her in today's scene, eager to capture images of her character with a hot Senate candidate, played by Ralph Fiennes. "It's a hall of mirrors," admits director Wayne Wang.
"Most of the press on this film has been really supportive of us," Goldsmith-Thomas says, as Fiennes chats nearby with Wang. "I mean, everyone takes potshots, 'cause potshots are sexier". "But it's still mean to take them," Lopez says softly. "But she doesn't care," her friend replies. Agree that she seems to be handling it well, and Lopez's Bronx-bred sassiness comes out in full force. "I don't care, I'm a bitch," she snaps, suddenly adopting a steely gaze.
Lopez can be forgiven for having a moment, especially one that seems to parody her reputation as a diva. Aside from personal upheaval, this summer she has faced constant script revisions, a near-riot by her fans on location, and nonstop press scrutiny, all with what appears to be amazing aplomb. And these are just a few of the many twists and turns her production has survived on its way to the screen.
The fairy tale began at the turn of the century, when teen film auteur John Hughes (The Breakfast Club) contacted Joe Roth, founder of the new Revolution Studios. "He said, 'I'm writing this script, kind of a Cinderella story called The Chambermaid,'" recalls Roth. The plot revolved around a Chicago maid who steals a dress from the hotel where she works, then sneaks off to an exclusive party where she meets a European royal. Roth bought it, but the biggest news was that after a decade of simply writing and producing family films like Flubber and Baby's Day Out, Hughes wanted to return to the director's chair (his last effort was 1991's Curly Sue). The two began shopping the project around to several A-list actresses, including Roth's friend Julia Roberts, who passed. A serious flirtation with Sandra Bullock ensued. "She wanted some work done on the material that John felt uncomfortable committing to do until she committed," Roth says. Bullock dropped out shortly thereafter.
Next up: Hilary Swank. "She was certainly interested, and we were interested in having her do it," Roth says. Press reports claimed Hughes dropped out of directing while Bullock was considering the project, then changed his mind during talks with Swank. "I don't know if John ever came back in," Roth says now. "John is a very particular guy, and unless he tells me he's absolutely going to do something as a director, my assumption is he's [just] going to write or produce it. If, in fact, John was going to [direct], we were talking about doing it with Hilary." It was not to be: Swank ended up signing for Insomnia in early 2001, and "decided to go in kind of a bigger, more commercial way with Jennifer," says Roth.
Roth handed the project over to Goldsmith-Thomas, whom he'd hired to head his studio's New York branch. She had read the script when she was Roberts's agent, and she felt it would be the right film to simultaneously launch her division and Roberts's production company (now named Red Om Films), and harness the talents of another former client, Lopez. "I decided the script needed a rewrite," she says. "We sort of tailored it for Jennifer." It became the tale of Marisa Ventura, a single mother from the Bronx who works as a maid in an upscale Manhattan hotel. "I had the Bronx, Puerto Rican part down," Lopez deadpans. While cleaning the room of a condescending socialite (Natasha Richardson), she tries on a Dolce & Gabbana pantsuit and accidentally attracts the attention of Christopher Marshall (Fiennes), a suave Republican from a political dynasty. A romantic comedy of mistaken identity unfolds as he pursues her, under the watchful eyes of Marisa's precocious son (Tyler Garcia Posey), her supportive coworkers (Bob Hoskins, Frances Conroy, and Marissa Matrone), and Marshall's antsy adviser (Stanley Tucci). "[Jennifer and I] were making up a story, never thinking it was going toreally happen," Goldsmith-Thomas says. "Then I typed up a 49-page treatment and gave it to Jennifer." Says Lopez, "That's when everybody knew that we had a solid thing.
Well, not quite everybody. After Goldsmith-Thomas told Hughes her ideas for the script, he dropped out of the film altogether. (The Garboesque Hughes declined to comment except through his lawyer, Jake Bloom, who says he left "because of the direction Revolution wanted to take the picture.") After securing her star, Goldsmith-Thomas traveled to San Francisco to meet with Wayne Wang. "She basically told me the whole movie in an hour and a half, in real time," Wang says. Though he has directed both indie comedies (Smoke, Eat a Bowl of Tea) and studio dramas (The Joy Luck Club, Anywhere But Here) since his $22,000 breakthrough, Chan Is Missing, two decades ago, he might not seem the obvious choice for a $50 million romantic comedy. "[Elaine] wanted to make a very down-to-earth, character-driven comedy," Wang says. "She was also interested in the upstairs-downstairs aspect of the hotel, and she said I've shown I could do that very well." He had just finished the digital video drama The Center of the World, which examines an Internet tycoon's paid tryst with a stripper in Vegas. "Elaine keeps saying she hired me because I did porn," he jokes.
In a more obvious choice for a film Goldsmith-Thomas describes as "Working Girl meets Pretty Woman," Working Girl screenwriter Kevin Wade was hired to create a script from the treatment. Oddly, both Wang and Wade say they never talked to Hughes or read his screenplay during a series of meetings that began in fall of2001 with producers Goldsmith-Thomas, Paul Schiff, and Red Om head Deborah Schindler to workshop each new version. (Wade says he did read Hughes's work in the spring of 2002.) "I was mostly the person who was saying, 'This is too over the top,' or 'Let's make this more real. Let's make it simpler,'" Wang says of those meetings. "At every level of the draft, [Lopez] would read it and give us her notes."
In casting the male lead, Wang remembered Ralph Fiennes's "very dry wit" as a Golden Globes presenter. The British actor has played Americans before, but he's never starred in a comedy, rarely even cracked a smile onscreen. Fiennes says his character was "a bit of a cipher" in thescript he first read, but Wang overcame his hesitations. "I felt Wayne would bring an undercurrent of realism to it, so it's not badda bing, badda boom."
As the April 29, 2002, start date approached, the script was still far from final. "We did talk about [moving the film back]," Wangsays, "but given Jennifer's schedule, we were locked into a certain slot." Rewrites continued on the set. Along with making certain plot revisions (such as the timing of a climactic kiss) that necessitated others, Wang and Wade kept pressing for streamlining the script, while Goldsmith-Thomas wanted more character detail on the hotel's "background people, who serve the city they can't afford to live in," and Lopez stressed her character's relationshipwith a doubting mother. Wade visited the set several times a week to draft new dialogue on the fly. "It was a little nerve-racking," Lopez admits with a laugh.
In the early stages of the shoot, Fiennes also sounded a bit shell-shocked when describing the script. "It's changing all the time," he said then, laughing. "It's mutating." The classically trained actor eventually threw up his hands. "It is disconcerting, especially if you're not part of the process of why it's changing, although I could have fought to be more part of the process, and I did to begin with," he says now. "At one point, Elaine was showing Kevin, Wayne, and myself proposed rewrites she had come up with, the three of us crowding around a laptop in a trailer on a very hot lunch hour. In the end, I just felt, 'When you've decided, show me the finished scene, and if something really worries me, I'll say so.'" The title, too, was in flux. "The Chambermaid sounds a bit like a porn movie," Wang says. "I've already got a Joy Fuck Club out there." In the end, Wang, Fiennes, and several other actors said most of the changes were for the better, and praised Goldsmith-Thomas's vision. The resulting screenplay focuses less on witty banter and more on character and quirks, with politics, class divisions, and details of city life all explored.
The filmmakers got a big dose of city life during shooting in the Bronx, where everyone underestimated Lopez's loyal neighborhood following. "On the first day, school lets out, and maybe a thousand kids start rocking her trailer!" says a freaked Goldsmith-Thomas, who was inside. Adds Schindler, "She was getting overrun, and yet she was so gracious." "Other people were scared!" Lopez says with a laugh. "I signed a bunch of autographs and took pictures, and that's really all they want. It was fine.
She wasn't quite as cool when news of her separation broke and paparazzi descended on the set. "They wouldn't stay out of the shot," recalls 11-year-old Tyler Garcia Posey. "It didn't really bother me, but I think it kind of bothered Jennifer, 'cause she got really mad at them. She would say, 'Okay! Leave now! Just go!' They would just stand back a little bit and start clicking. It was crazy." Says Lopez, "At first it was kind of hard, because they were really trying to get something they hadn't gotten yet. But then they got me in the maid uniform 15 times, and it wasn't as intense.
"There's a certain irony in the situation, because there I am playing the la-di-da queen, and J.Lo is the chambermaid," says Natasha Richardson, whose character vies for the politico's affections. "Her Majesty comes on set, and I feel like the chambermaid, so it's a stretch." So what was it like working with Lopez? "You know, I just think she's so beautiful. I love her look, and I'm a sort of fan of the J.Lo package, so it's interesting to observe.
Fiennes is a fan as well. "She's a great actress," he says. "She's totally spontaneous and very generous." Her younger costar clearly agrees. "She was so giving," Garcia Posey says, warming up for the punch line. "She taught me a lot of stuff, and in return, I gave her some advice on Ben Affleck." Ah, yes, Ben. On the last week of the shoot, after news of their relationship had broken in the press, Affleck visited the film'sMetropolitan Museum of Art location for Lopez's 32nd birthday. "The paparazzi were trying to get their first shot of them together, and it got a little nuts," Wang says. "There was one [photographer] who literally wouldn't get out of the way." Fiennes observed that the "unspoken agreement" Lopez had developed with the lens men "allowing them to take pictures when it was convenient" paid off at that moment. "I saw the regular paparazzi actually trying to stophim!" he recalls. "I thought, that's just so absurd."
It would not be the project's final surreal touch. After his work had been
transformed nearly beyond recognition, and Revolution proposed giving sole
screenplay credit to Kevin Wade, John Hughes took the issue to the Writers
Guild for arbitration as he does "whenever there's a doubt," says Hughes's lawyer Jake Bloom. The decision came back that Wade should have screenplay
credit, and Hughes would get credit for the story. But you won't find Hughes's name anywhere on this movie. Although Bloom says that the resolution was
amicable, Hughes used a pseudonym, the same one that appears on the canine
comedy Beethoven, which also fell out of his control: that of Edmond Dantes,
the betrayed hero of The Count of Monte Cristo, who, in a Cinderella-style
twist, adopts a new identity to seek his revenge.
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on January 9, 2003
EL STEPHO