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"I thought she'd offer me some sympathy. Instead, she said, 'Don't you ever call me crying again! You wanted to be in this business, so you better toughen up!' And I did." - to Redbook magazine August 1999, on the lesson in tough love she got from her mother.
"You laugh it off, you get upset for a little while, you're human and you let it go." - on the "outrageous" tabloid stories she hears about herself, at a press conference to discuss her movie, The Cell (2000) in August 2000 "This film certainly is not meant for the girls who sing along with my songs" (about The Cell (2000)) I was always a singer and a dancer, and I always wanted to be an actress. For me, it's all just one thing. "Nail Polish" (upon being asked what she got on her SAT's) "When I'm not prepared, which is almost never." -when asked if she ever feels insecure I don't really check out other people's butts. I'm not mad about my ankles - they're too skinny. We've all had a love of our life and failed love affairs. I'm just the biggest romantic - it's really sad. I tell people that, but nobody listens. I've always had a huge fear of dying or becoming ill. The thing I'm most afraid of, though, is being alone, which I think a lot of performers fear. It's why we seek the limelight - so we're not alone, were adored. Were loved, so people want to be around us. The fear of being alone drives my life. In every movie they want you to look as thin as you can look. In Selena, it was the other way around: "How can we shoot her butt so it looks like Selena's?" I only do what my gut tells me to. I think it's smart to listen to other people's advice, but at the end of the day, you're the only one who can tell you what's right for you. If you focus on the money, you're not going to get anywhere. You can want to be successful, but at the end of the day, if money is your motivation, if that's how shallow your outlook is on life, then you're going to be such an empty person. Because there's nothing driving you from the inside -- there's no passion... My mom always told me that if you work hard, you can achieve anything. And it's true. It's one of the truest things ever. I think crossroads come at many times during your life. Up to this point, I've had several. You get to a certain point in your life and you're like, Am I supposed to be doing this? And it's usually in the face of some failure - something that didn't work out the way you wanted it to. And you're faced with a decision: Do I keep trying to do this or do I give up? Beauty is only skin deep. I think what's really important is finding a balance of mind, body and spirit. Somebody said to me not too long ago, 'Until you're twenty, you have the face you are born with, and after that you have the face you deserve', and I really loved that - the idea that you wear who you are on your face. If you kiss on the first date and it's not right, then there will be no second date. Sometimes it's better to hold out and not kiss for a long time. I am a strong believer in kissing being very intimate, and the minute you kiss, the floodgates open for everything else. I was in third grade when Rapper's Delight changed my life. But, when I came home, my mother would be listening to Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Diana Ross. I want to include all those elements in my music. I didn't expect it to happen like this, wrapping one film and flying out to do a new one the next day. But I'm fresh enough and ambitious enough to stay up all night for the sake of a job. I'm not gonna take it easy. I want to do so much more when I'm getting these great opportunities. I'm trying to get the focus back on what I do as an artist, not what I do at home. It was all a bit mad. For a girl like me, wearing gorgeous clothes and having all this attention was amazing. It was like being a princess. But it didn't take me long to realise that that sort of fame can be scary. The more the circus builds up around you, the more you start to lose all those intentions that get you there in the first place. I was always about being a good performer and working hard, doing movies, making music, but that started to get lost in all that crazy stuff. I throw myself into love because I believe in it, but when things don't work you have to take responsibility. You all know things have gone wrong for me. Everybody has laughed, everybody has had a knock at me. It hurts, it always does. There have been times when I didn't want to be me any more. From the outside looking in, it may have appeared that it was a glamorous exciting life, but I would have swapped places with anybody. It really did start to get to me and the easy thing to do would be to walk away. I'm not J.Lo, she's not a real person. She was just a bit of fun that got really crazy. I've never been anyone but Jennifer. I was going to call the album Call Me Jennifer because that would be my way of saying goodbye to the whole J.Lo thing. But Rebirth is perfect because it means so much more.
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