Having redefined Lopez's sound with "I'm Real (Murder Remix)", Epic decided to release further remixes in order to "keep the momentum going". A remix album entitled J to tha L–O! The Remixes was subsequently released on February 5, 2002. It debuted at the summit of the Billboard 200, making it the first remix album to do so. Its lead single, "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)", featuring Ja Rule and Caddillac Tah, reached number one in the US. J to tha L–O! The Remixes became one of the best-selling remix albums of all time, selling 1.5 million copies in the US. It produced two more singles: "I'm Gonna Be Alright" and "Alive", a ballad co-written by her husband at the time, Cris Judd. In April 2002, Lopez opened her restaurant, Madrè's. The following month, she starred in the thriller film Enough, which was described by the Boston Herald as a "kick-but, female empowerment" film. While filming Enough, which required an overworked Lopez to practice Krav Maga, she suffered a nervous breakdown. She recalled feeling "sick and weird", refusing therapeutic help or medication. She confessed, "I was like – I don't want to move, I don't want to talk, I don't want to do anything." In September, she released her first fragrance, Glow by JLo. It performed strongly despite predictions that it would fail, and became the top-selling fragrance in the US.
While attending her final year of high school, Lopez learned about a film casting that was seeking several teenage girls for small roles. She auditioned and was cast in My Little Girl (1986), a low-budget film co-written and directed by Connie Kaiserman. Lopez acted as Myra, a young woman at a center for troubled girls. After she finished filming her role in the film, Lopez realized that she wanted to become a "famous movie star". To please her parents, though, she enrolled in Baruch College, only to drop out after one semester. She told her parents about her dream of becoming a movie star, but they insisted that it was a "really stupid" idea and that "no Latinos did that". The differences in opinions led Lopez to move out of their family home and into an apartment in Manhattan. During this period, Lopez performed in regional productions of the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Oklahoma!. From there, she was hired for the chorus in a Golden Musicals of Broadway, which toured Europe for five months. She was unhappy with the role, as she was the only member of the chorus not to have a solo. She later got a job on the show Synchronicity in Japan, where she acted as a dancer, singer, and choreographer.
More InfoJennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, in The Bronx borough of New York City, to Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe Rodríguez and David López. She has an older sister, Leslie, and a younger sister, Lynda, a journalist. David worked the night shift at the Guardian Insurance Company before becoming a computer technician at the firm, while Guadalupe was a homemaker. When Lopez was born, the family was living in a small apartment in the Castle Hill neighborhood. A few years later, her parents had saved up enough money to be able to purchase a two-story house, which was considered a big deal for the relatively poor family. At the age of five, Lopez began taking singing and dancing lessons. She toured New York with her school when she was seven years old. Her parents stressed the importance of work ethic and being able to speak English. They encouraged their three daughters to put on performances at home—singing and dancing in front of each other and their friends so that they would stay "out of trouble". Lopez spent her entire academic career in Catholic schools, finishing at Preston High School. In school, Lopez did gymnastics, ran track on a national level, and was a member of the school's softball team. She excelled athletically rather than academically, competing in national track championships.
More InfoHaving redefined Lopez's sound with "I'm Real (Murder Remix)", Epic decided to release further remixes in order to "keep the momentum going". A remix album entitled J to tha L–O! The Remixes was subsequently released on February 5, 2002. It debuted at the summit of the Billboard 200, making it the first remix album to do so. Its lead single, "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)", featuring Ja Rule and Caddillac Tah, reached number one in the US. J to tha L–O! The Remixes became one of the best-selling remix albums of all time, selling 1.5 million copies in the US. It produced two more singles: "I'm Gonna Be Alright" and "Alive", a ballad co-written by her husband at the time, Cris Judd. In April 2002, Lopez opened her restaurant, Madrè's. The following month, she starred in the thriller film Enough, which was described by the Boston Herald as a "kick-but, female empowerment" film. While filming Enough, which required an overworked Lopez to practice Krav Maga, she suffered a nervous breakdown. She recalled feeling "sick and weird", refusing therapeutic help or medication. She confessed, "I was like – I don't want to move, I don't want to talk, I don't want to do anything." In September, she released her first fragrance, Glow by JLo. It performed strongly despite predictions that it would fail, and became the top-selling fragrance in the US.
More InfoDuring the process of recording her second album, Lopez decided to tweak her image as she began to develop into a sex symbol. She started going by J.Lo, something fans often called her in the years after director Oliver Stone coined the term on the set of the 1997 film U Turn. She subsequently named the album J.Lo. Released on January 23, 2001, it was a commercial success, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200. During the same week, her romantic comedy film The Wedding Planner in which she starred opposite Matthew McConaughey opened atop the box office. This made her the first woman to have a number one film and album simultaneously in the United States. The album was preceded by the release of its lead single, "Love Don't Cost a Thing", which reached number one on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart. It was followed by the single "Play". In April 2001, Lopez launched J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez, her own clothing and accessory company. Lopez felt that "the voluptuous woman [was] almost ignored" in the fashion industry, and therefore her company specialized in clothing women of all shapes. The following month, she starred in the romantic drama film Angel Eyes, which performed disappointingly at the box office and generated mixed reviews. After several months, J.Lo was declining on the charts; this prompted Mottola to recruit rapper Ja Rule to create an urban-oriented remix of the song "I'm Real". This led to the release of "I'm Real (Murder Remix)", which quickly reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Its success resulted in J.Lo being reissued to include the single, which was number one in the United States during the week of the September 11 attacks. J.Lo became the best-selling album of Lopez's career, having sold 3.8 million copies in the US and moved over 12 million units worldwide.
More InfoOn Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 369 reviews, with an average rating of 7.56/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Ad Astra takes a visually thrilling journey through the vast reaches of space while charting an ambitious course for the heart of the bond between parent and child." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 80 out of 100, based on 56 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed at PostTrak gave it an average 2.5 out of 5 stars, with 40% saying they would definitely recommend it.
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