Jennifer Lopez reflects on platinum blonde transformation for recent project

Jennifer Lopez is opening up about her complete transformation for her latest film Kiss of the Spider Woman.

During her Oct. 15 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the 56-year-old actress reflected on how stepping into her new role changed not just her look, but also the way she carried herself. 

Stern complimented Lopez on both her performance and her striking platinum blonde hairstyle in the movie, telling her, “I like you as a platinum blonde. I know you were thinking I don’t want to be [blonde] in the movie.”

Lopez admitted she was hesitant about the look at first. “It was so different,” she said. 

“I was just worried because I’d never had platinum blonde hair.” The actress explained that she had tried blonde wigs in the past, but they never suited her complexion. 

“It always looked so terrible on my skin tone,” she shared. “I thought this would be bad.”

To make it work, her longtime makeup artist, Scott Barnes, adjusted everything, from her foundation to her lipstick shades. 

“The skin needed to be transformed. I had to put more pink in my foundation,” Lopez recalled. “Scott said, ‘I know how to do it. We’re going to make it beautiful.’”

The Kiss of the Spider Woman star said the change went beyond appearance.

“Everything changed. I turned into a different person,” she explained. “My hands moved differently. My body was different. Colors that I wore. Everything changed.”

In the film, a screen adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical, Lopez plays Ingrid Luna, a fictional Hollywood star imagined by two prisoners in a South American jail who use fantasies of her films to escape their harsh reality.

Although Lopez didn’t keep her platinum hair once filming ended, she has continued to channel the film’s glamorous aesthetic. 

Earlier this month, on Oct. 6, she appeared in an avant-garde Harris Reed Demi-Couture gown featuring a dramatic, spider-like corset, a clear nod to her latest role.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is now playing in theaters.