Jennifer Lopez Reveals Which Major Movie Role She Lost to Madonna

Jennifer Lopez is a prolific artist in both music and film. But she has to audition like everyone else.

Over the course of her nearly four-decade career, Lopez, 56, has amassed a wealth of acting credits — including the 1997 Selena Quintanilla biopic Selena. A year prior, she auditioned for the 1996 film adaptation of Evita, which details the life of Argentine activist and actress Eva Perón. She recalled this audition during a post-screening Q&A of her new movie musical Kiss of the Spider Woman on Wednesday, September 10.

“I went to audition for Evita for [director] Alan Parker,” said Lopez, per Variety.

Unfortunately, she learned immediately after her audition that the role was already cast — to none other than Madonna.

“I had been practicing for weeks and I sing my heart out and he goes, ‘You’re amazing. You know Madonna has the part, right?,” she recalled.

Defeated, she left the audition with a simple message to Parker. “I said, ‘OK, bye-bye. Nice to meet you.’”

This wouldn’t be the last time Lopez didn’t nail an audition. Back in January, when Kiss of the Spider Woman first premiered at Sundance, she opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about movie musicals she lost out on.

“I remember auditioning for Evita, I remember auditioning for Chicago and for Nine — getting very close on Nine,” she said at the time. “There was a lot of things that I had always hoped that I could do and just wasn’t the right time. But this is the right thing.”

Since then, Lopez has starred in several movie musicals, including 2006’s El Cantante, 2022’s Marry Me, and now, Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Fans can look forward to seeing Kiss of the Spider Woman in theaters on Friday, October 10.