"Marry Me" co-stars Jennifer Lopez and Maluma on new movie and finding "the one"
Music superstars Jennifer Lopez and Maluma sat down with "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King to talk about their new movie, "Marry Me," and opened up about finding love and meeting "the one."
In the film, which comes out ahead of Valentine's Day, on Friday, the two play music power couple Kat Valdez and Bastian. It's a love story featuring an unlikely romance between two strangers: Valdez and a math teacher played by Owen Wilson.
Lopez has racked up hits on the charts and at the box office for decades. She was the first artist to have a new album and movie hit No. 1 in the same week. Maluma is a superstar too and has climbed the global billboard charts with hits like "Hawái." In 2018, he became the youngest Colombian artist to sell out Madison Square Garden.
"Marry Me" is his first movie role.
"Yeah, it was beautiful. It was beautiful working with Jennifer," he told King in an interview that aired Wednesday.
Despite playing a cheater, Maluma insisted that was not him "at all," but he said the character meant a lot to him.
"I loved it 'cause I got super connected with Bastian, too, because this guy dreams of becoming a huge superstar," Maluma said.
For Lopez, there were parts of the movie that "100%" mirrored her real life, she said.
"I love acting and it's something that comes very natural to me," Lopez said. "But in this movie, in some of those scenes, it was harder for me to go there emotionally because I'm so used to covering that up for everyone. And so, in that setting, it felt weird.
"I would never let anybody know that this hurt me or how — how much this affected me," she said. "I can't, you know. I'm OK. I'm OK. Don't worry about me. I'm here. I'm going to sing this song. I'm going to do the thing."
Lopez described her role as a "meta experience," noting that she was able to let her true self out at times.
"The crux of it is about love... Do you consider yourself a hopeless romantic?" King asked her.
"A hopeful romantic," Lopez replied.
"How do you know, Jennifer Lopez, when you have found the one?" King asked. "How do you know that? 'Cause you do seem to be in a very different place."
"Yes. You do know. You know when it's not quite right, too," she said. "And I think we do this thing where we're hopeful or hopeless sometimes. Like, we do the thing where it's like, 'Maybe this could work.' But when you really, really love someone, when it's something that's almost not your choice, it's just that's who you are and that's who they are, you know. You do know."
Lopez and Ben Affleck made their relationship official last September, 17 years after they broke up.
"You do seem to know this time," King said.
"Yes, I do know this time," Lopez said.
For Maluma, knowing a partner is "the one" comes when "everything is organic and natural," he said.
"You don't have to try to fall in love with someone. It just happens," he said. "For me, that's very important because I'm growing. I just want to fall in love, too, and just having someone with me and get old with someone else."