Why Jennifer Lopez considered quitting Hollywood at the height of her career

Jennifer Lopez’s “Halftime” documentary shows the singer and actress at her most bare. Throughout its runtime, Lopez gets ready for her Superbowl Halftime performance and shows viewers the process of making and producing her critically acclaimed film, “Hustlers.” She also discussed a time when she considered quitting Hollywood and leaving it all behind.

Jennifer Lopez’s career blew up impressively, starring in a variety of films and maintaining an incredibly profitable musical career in the early 2000s. This time period also coincided with her relationship with Ben Affleck, a topic that was scrutinized by the media. “No matter what I achieved,” she said in the documentary, “Their [the media’s] appetite to cover my personal life overshadowed everything. I believed a lot of what they said, which is that I wasn’t really good.”

Despite the fact that the documentary is mostly focused on the years before her reunion with Affleck, he makes a brief appearance in it, discussing their experiences together. “I said to her once, doesn’t this bother you?” he said, referencing the media’s jabs. ”And she said, I’m Latina, I expected this. You just don’t expect it, you expect to be treated fairly.“

“There were many times where I was like I think I’m just going to quit,” Lopez said. “I had to really figure out who I was and believe in that and not believe anything else.” She also shared that beauty standards were different during that time period, something that made her public life more difficult. “It was hard when you think people think you’re a joke. Like you’re a punchline. But I wound up affecting things in a way that I never intended to affect them.”

The documentary captured the months prior and after the release of “Hustlers,” a time when people thought she would get an Academy Award nomination. While she didn’t get one, she did get nominated for the Golden Globes. “It only took 20 years,“ she joked when she heard the news.