Jennifer Lopez opened up to Elle in an interview published Thursday (November 30th) about her decades-long acting career and when she thinks she might call it quits.
On what she wishes she knew when she first got started in the business, the Marry Me star said, “One of those things was to be more particular with my choices. And I didn’t have that luxury, being Latina. I didn’t get called in for everything someone who wasn’t Latina would get called in for. I got called in for very specific things.”
She added that she remembers “having to fight for different roles” as a Latina, “to be a lead in a romantic comedy—to not play the maid or the housekeeper.”
Lopez also spoke about the misperception that women are obsolete in the industry once they’re over the age of 30. “As you get older and you have more experience, you become a richer human being and you have more to offer,” the Wedding Planner actor said. “The idea of, ‘There’s nothing really valuable about watching a woman over 30′ is so ridiculous, it’s the opposite of right. It just makes me laugh.”
As for when she’ll retire, she told the outlet, “I don’t know what that age is. It might be 70, it might be 80, it might be 90, I don’t know … But I know that it’s there for me if I want it and I want to create it. That has always been the mindset that I’ve had: to never let anybody put me in a box because of where I was born, where I’m from, what age I am, anything like that. Those boundaries don’t exist for me.”