Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna, Tonatiuh & Bill Condon – Dancing With the Spider Woman

[L-R] Bill Condon, Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh attend the KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN New York premiere. Credit: Jason Crowley/BFA

Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna, Tonatiuh & Bill Condon

Dancing With the Spider Woman

By Jay S. Jacobs

When Hollywood is adapting a hit Broadway musical (or making an original), chances are the first name on their speed dial is Bill Condon. Condon wrote and/or directed such popular movie musicals as Chicago, DreamGirls, the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast and The Greatest Showman.

His latest film is an adaptation of The Kiss of the Spider Woman, which has taken the circuitous trip from novel to straight play to dramatic film to Broadway musical to finally becoming a musical motion picture. It is the story of two prisoners in an Argentine jail during the 1980s insurrections – one a gay man and one a hardened revolutionary – who use the description of a cheesy old Hollywood movie to escape their situation. As they are stuck together for more time and more atrocities, they come to like and respect and even care deeply for each other.

The cast of the new film is made up of some of the bigger Latin names in acting, with Jennifer Lopez playing the title character and an actress in the old film, Diego Luna playing the revolutionary (as well as another character in the movie) and Tonatiuh as the apolitical gay man.

A little over a week before the premiere of Kiss of the Spider Woman, we were privileged to take part in a virtual press conference with stars Lopez, Luna, Tonatiuh and writer/director Bill Condon. Here is what they had to say about The Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[L-R] Tonatiuh, Jennifer Lopez, Bill Condon and Diego Luna during the KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN virtual press conference

Bill, what drew you personally to reimagine Kiss of the Spider Woman for today's audience? This is a story that's been told in many forms before. What was your attraction to it, and what makes this version distinct in your view?

Bill Condon: It's a good question. You have to answer the question “why?” when you take on something that's had so many different iterations. For me, it was my love of the novel. It felt as if, even though all previous versions had been groundbreaking in their time, (novelist Manuel) Puig was way ahead of all of them. We've just caught up to everything he was writing about, specifically stuff about gender fluidity. Just the fact that it's a love story. The novel is a full love story, not a transactional love story. So it was a chance for me to be true to Puig.

Jennifer, this is such a layered role. What initially drew you to this project, and why did you feel this is the moment now for you to take on a role like this, to tell the story?

Jennifer Lopez: I've always wanted to do a musical. That's been something that's been a dream of mine, and in the back of my head for so long. Bill sent me the script, and the minute I read it, (laughs) I was blown away. All of the things that I imagined when I was a little girl, of what I wanted to do with my life, were in this script. I got to sing. I got to dance. I got to act. I got to play a big Hollywood movie star. It was the stuff that dreams are made of. So it was really a no brainer for me. The script was so lovely. Like he said, It is a love story at the core of it. It was also this beautiful homage to how important films are in our life. I was taken by it the minute I read it and knew that it was something that I had to do, wanted to do.

Emotionally and symbolically, there are a lot of dualities to the characters that you play. The characters of  Aurora and the Spider Woman is both alluring and dangerous, symbolic and human. How did you approach those dualities in your performance? How did you embrace and navigate?

Jennifer Lopez: It was three different characters that I got to play. Ingrid Luna, the actress that that Tonatiuh’s character Molina idolizes and is in love with. There's her, and then there's Aurora, and then there's the Spider Woman, right? There's the dark and the light of the two sides of somebody. At the end of the day, you look at it, and you say, okay, Molina is Aurora. (laughs) They're the same person. Then Molina loves Ingrid Luna. For me, it was making them all just a little bit different but knowing that all of us were the same in that we were all searching for love. The Spider Woman just wants a kiss. Aurora is looking for her true love. Molina is dying to be loved, wanting to be loved, wanting to be seen. Even Diego’s character, Valentin, wants to be seen, wants to be heard as a political revolutionary. There were just so many pieces to it. For me playing each one of the three characters, it was about finding just little nuances. Obviously, the costumes and the hair and all of that helped to define each one, but there were different emotional cores at the center of each character as well.

Tonatiuh, how did you get in character? Is Molina inspired by or modeled after someone that you knew?

Tonatiuh: The source material is a testament to the work. It was such a launching pad. The world that Bill wrote was poetic. When I read it, I immediately knew A) how much work it was going to be, but B) what joy it was going to be to do that. I felt like I was getting invited to the Olympics, getting to work with everyone here. (laughs) The way that I approached it, like Jennifer, where in the 1940s musical, I really wanted to exemplify traditional masculinity, so that it could have a strong juxtaposition and contrast to Molina and their genderless form. In order to arrive there, though, I had just come off of Carry-On, so I needed to lose weight. I lost about 45 pounds in 50 days to get that silhouette, and to live that reality of being in a dictatorship inside of a prison cell. It was just fascinating. I got to play the totality of the gender spectrum in a film, and that was such a gift. It's quite touching, not just the relevance of our film, but like how it centers the dignity of a Latino and the LGBTQIA community. In terms of modeling it after somebody. Kendall, I kept thinking about what star of that era was closeted and in deep pain, and I instantly thought Montgomery Clift. I kept thinking about The Heiress and his performance in that. I looked at people like Gene Kelly or Errol Flynn. I tried to steal his hair because that hairline was iconic. (laughs again) Then for Molina, it wasn't really based on anything. I was just allowing myself to live in that reality. As we found small choices, and as the weight started coming off, it was just a discussion. What length of hair do we want ? We just kept trying things until we found the essence, and then it was just about allowing that essence to come through.

Diego Luna during the KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN virtual press conference

Diego, what experiences, perhaps personally or professionally, did you grab onto to connect with the character Valentin? More specifically, you have talked in the past that you were participating in some student protests back in 1994. Were those the basis or inspiration for getting into character?

Diego Luna: Yes, thank you for the question. I guess growing up in Mexico and learning about the recent history of Latin America in this film means a lot. There are so many brutal examples of dictatorships in Latin America. I was in Mexico in the in the ‘90s, where a lot was happening. ’94, particularly, was a very, very important year for many things, for social movements and for community work. So yes, of course, that's there. But I would say that the most important part of my past that I got to play with here is theater. My father was a set designer. This film, to me, is how much film was theater back then. How films were shot. The dynamic of filming was very close to filming theater, basically. So for me, that section of the film was beautiful to experience. Being in New York, obviously, with Jennifer and Tonatiuh and the whole group of performers. That love what I grew up watching every day, as my family and home. It was beautiful. And then, we are talking about how film and pop culture can be an escape, but also a mirror. A mirror that helps you transcend reality. That's my life, basically. (chuckles) That's why I do what I do.

Jennifer, earlier you mentioned the costumes of the film by Colleen Atwood and Christine Cantella. Absolutely masterful work. What does that do to your performance? How does it inform your performance to be in those costumes, to be in that era?

Jennifer Lopez: It's the costumes and it's the hair and makeup, right? It's all of it, because my three characters are so different. Colleen was very specific about what she wanted. It wasn't like other costume designers I worked with, they come with all of these clothes, and they're like, “What do you think? Who is your character? I think this, this and this.” They have their opinions, of course, but she was very specific. “This is the suit that I'm thinking of for this.” She had a sketch of it, and she had color swatches, and she was like, “What do you think? Do you like this? Do you like that?” We honed it down, but it made it very clear for me where I was in each moment, because we are not making a whole movie in the musical, right? We're doing pieces of this movie. So it's like, okay, where are we in this movie? (laughs) What are we doing? She was like, “You're traveling here,” and “you're doing this here.” “You'll have a suit here, and you'll have this long dress here.” I'm like, okay, okay, so we're in a big gala. This is a thing. It's black tie. It made it very simple for me to understand exactly who I was in that moment. For me, the costumes are a very big part of understanding the character and making the reality come to life in that way.

Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh in KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN

You mentioned some golden age of Hollywood stars. Were there any names that you personally held close or thought about?

Jennifer Lopez: It's funny. We talked about Judy Garland for Ingrid Luna a little bit. We looked at some of her performances for that. But when I think of old Hollywood movie stars, I think of Ava Gardner or Rita Hayworth, those types of women. Lana Turner was one that we looked at for the hair for Aurora,  So there were different ones that we looked at.

Bill Condon: Audrey Hepburn, oddly for the Spider Woman.

Jennifer Lopez: Yes, we did. 

Tonatiuh: Also you channeled Marilyn [Monroe] in “Gimme Love.” I was gob smacked. I was just like, my God, that is like she's here. You were stunning.

Jennifer Lopez: Thank you. Thank you. It was just like that classic Hollywood movie star, and I think that's what we wanted to do.

The story balances fantasy and survival, dazzling musicals on one side and political imprisonment and forbidden love on the other side. How did you ensure that these two love stories and different layers imagined and the real weren't just entertainment but reflections of the truth that we need today. How did all of you, as stars and writer-director, embrace those truths within the movie?

Bill Condon: Starting when I was writing the script, it became clear this is the first time there's only been one movie that gets narrated. So the movie within the movie here, the musical, is invented for this film. I was always worried about the fact that we were going to invest this time with these two prisoners in a cell and then interrupt it with a musical number and then go back and that would start to be something that an audience resented. It's very important that the story of what's happening in the prison cell continued through the movie within the movie. I think the penny drops for an audience… I've seen a number of times now… about 20 minutes in, where they are like, oh, it's not being interrupted. We're actually learning more about Molina through the story that he's telling. Then there's a great moment when Valentin wants to hear more about the movie. By the end, he is projecting his own feelings onto Armando. He's taken that leap. That was the crucial, connecting thing.

Tonatiuh and Diego Luna in KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN

Tonatiuh: My ethos as a performer has always been to allow my body to serve a larger purpose, right?  Ikigai is where your purpose and the work that you do kind of meet. With this film, I think that there's a certain level for all of us in this where we are championing communities with this story and reminding people of the dignity and the values of both the LGBTQ community [and] the Latino community. There was an essence here, where that felt like there was a purpose and entertainment at the same time.

Jennifer Lopez: You talked a little bit about why do this movie now? I think, like Bill said, Manuel [Puig]  was ahead of time,

Tonatiuh: Yeah, exactly.

Jennifer Lopez: But also, it's not done. I feel like the story and the message is not done yet. It needed to be told again to this generation. We need to remind people of the humanity of these communities. We need to remind people that love is love. It's a story that I think will keep being told until everybody gets on board with the fact that we're all just people, and we all should just be loving each other. It doesn't matter who we are on the outside. You have this cisgendered man who's this political, tough, revolutionary. Then you have this window dresser who's on the gender spectrum. We're not quite clear what it is from that time, because it was in the 80s. You have the two of them just seeing the humanity each other. Realizing they need each other, falling in love with who the other person is, One taking on these political ideals. Wanting to help and change his life from being just wrapped up in movies and beauty and love and all that. Then, Valentin doing the same thing. Embracing love and letting [go of] all of his ideas of who he thought this person was, and seeing him for the loving, beautiful human that he is. To me, that's what the movie is really here to do and to say in this moment.

Tonatiuh and Diego Luna in KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN

The relationship between Valentin and Molina begins with conflict but grows unexpectedly into intimacy. What did you discover about yourselves as actors while navigating that shift from tension to tenderness?

Diego Luna: This connects with the previous question, I have to say, because to me, that's the core of the film. What these people allow themselves to experience. It doesn't matter the conditions. You can't think of worse conditions to meet anyone important in your life, right? In a cell in this moment in history. You have to protect yourself from everything around. Opening up sounds crazy, right? I think that's where this time is getting us, all to build these walls to protect us from what's going on out there. The film tells that the solution, in fact, is in the exact opposite reaction. In being vulnerable. In opening up. As actors, we had to go through that. You couldn't achieve any of this if you were not completely connected to the other. Not just us as actors, but with Bill mostly. We are trying to channel something that, for Bill, is pretty clear. So I felt, it was, it was dangerous, it was fun, it was sometimes very demanding. It was everything. We were stuck in prison for weeks. We shot two films. One that is about the beautiful experience of movie making in New York. Then we went to a prison in Uruguay where we just didn't see the sun, and we shot every day this story while going through something similar, which was very intense and unique. I think that shows in the film.

Tonatiuh: Bill gifted us something that is uncommon in filmmaking, which is we shot the prison in sequence. So the first time that Molina walks into the cell and sees Valentin was the first time that I got to see Diego in full character. As actors, we built not just the relationship as our characters scene by scene, but as people we got to know each other moment by moment. The love, the connection, the vulnerability, the trust, was like this almost this meta narrative that was like happening between the two of us. It got to the point where, as I was saying goodbye, the tears just flowed out because I didn't want to say goodbye to Diego. I didn't want it to end. There was this need for one another because we were all we had in that moment. And, of course, Bill, but in that moment, we really needed each other in order to get through it.

Diego Luna: And we had a picture of Jennifer there. (They all laugh.)

Tonatiuh: Literally watching over us when we were doing it.

Jennifer Lopez: I was the escapism.

Tonatiuh: When we were doing it, that was fun.

Jennifer Lopez: Yeah, but that's the thing. The escaping into the musical for them, and Tonatiuh’s character really identifying with who Aurora was. Her need for love, and the fact that she felt cursed.

Tonatiuh: And could never find love. Yeah.

Jennifer Lopez:  How you were cursed in the prison at that moment and couldn't find love and wanted that so badly. Now that she found it, she had to give it up. Those and The Spider Woman wanting the darker side of that.

Tonatiuh: Wanting to take it away.

Jennifer Lopez: I'll protect you, but I want to take. There were so many dynamics about love in it, but at the end of the day, like I said earlier, it really is about that all of them were experiencing the same thing, in a way, which is the pursuit of feeling love.

Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh in KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN

We talked about this briefly, this idea of movies as a safe space. Can you name a film that is your personal safe space, a film that you really hold close and you turn to?

Bill Condon: It says something about me that it would be Vertigo. Can you imagine? (They all laugh.) It is the movie that I keep coming back to. I guess that's it.

Jennifer Lopez: I have many. I always say the first movie that really impacted my life was West Side Story, because there were Puerto Ricans in it. (laughs) I had not really seen that in anything else. I just love the Romeo and Juliet story that it's based on, obviously. It was a love story and a musical. It had everything I needed as a little girl and wanted. I could see myself in it, and I think that was important. The representation for me; I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if it weren’t for that movie.

Tonatiuh: Mine's a television show. It was Steven Universe Future. Rebecca Sugar created this animated show that’s based on psychology. Steven saves the world so many times as a child, and finally, the world is saved, and he's miserable because he never healed from all the childhood trauma that he had. There's a line where he says, “The littlest things happen, and it feels like the world has ended, because, for me, the world has ended so many times.” His family and his community all come together and make him feel seen and loved and supported, because he's been doing it his whole life for other people. Whenever I watch that 10-minute episode, it just feels safe.

Diego Luna: Safe space. I don't know if safe space works for me. I think of movies as a place that can serve the moment you're living. But there is always a challenge. There's always confrontation. That's the beauty, I think, of the film we worked on. But I would say, The Bicycle Thief. That's a film that gets me every time, that I go to quite a lot.

Speaking about Kiss of the Spider Woman, we have to talk about the amazing choreography of the dance moves. What was it like to collaborate with choreographers Christopher Scott and Brandon Bieber…

All: And Sergio Trujillo...

Jennifer Lopez: He's number one. It was amazing. I do a lot of shows, my own shows, and I do a lot of dancing, but I hadn't done this type of dancing for years and years and years. That musical theater, jazz, technical style of dancing. Broadway style of dancing. So it was challenging. It was challenging, but so much fun, because, again, it was something that I had wanted to do for so long. I just loved it. I loved every minute of it. I remember with Diego and Tona, both of them, they were a little bit more like,

“What are we doing?” They were like, “What are we talking?” I was like, we're just going to act it. You're going to act. You're an actor. We can do this. This is so easy. It was just beautiful. I could feel it. I can see their dedication and commitment, and, of course, my own as well. The choreographers were great. They were collaborative in the room. I sat in there, while they were creating. They let me input. I told them what I could do, what I couldn't do. Yes, I can jump off the bar. Yes. I can do all of it. Can you do it all in one take? Bill says. I think so, yes. And we did.

Tonatiuh: And you did.

Jennifer Lopez: And we did, yes. We all did. It was awesome.

Tonatiuh: That was really cool.

Jennifer Lopez: It was fun.

Tonatiuh: They put me through the Broadway boot camp. You get the letter. You get the offer. It was like, now you're going to sing and dance next to Jennifer Lopez. I was like, “Yeah, all right, it's the Olympics. It's time to get it's time to train.” I felt like Rocky on Broadway every morning. Here we go. But I'm a Capricorn. I love the challenge and Sergio, and I'm a Capricorn. I love a challenge.

Jennifer Lopez: (laughs) I love that you’re a Capricorn. “I’m a Capricorn and I love…

Tonatiuh: … I love a challenge. You're a Leo. You love that.

Jennifer Lopez: (still laughing) I’m a Leo. I love the dresses.

Tonatiuh: I told him. I was like, “If there's a way of making it better then tell them to me.” I'm like, “Is my line wrong?” Fix it. It needs to be great.

Jennifer Lopez in KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN

Jennifer Lopez: That's where Sergio was great. Because I was like, “Is my arm in the right place? Can my turns be better? Tell me what I'm doing.” He's like, “You got it. Do this. Do that.”

Tonatiuh: He had to come up to me. He's like, “Okay, you've got it. Now, you just have to have fun. Remember that acting part that you said you were good at? Go do that.” Oh, right, right, right. No more [with] the technique. Throw it out.

Diego Luna: I guess that's the way he was with you. With me, I have the feeling if I ever sit down next to him to watch the film, he's going to keep giving me [the eye]. (they laugh) Like, no, no.

Jennifer Lopez: But you were so wonderful. I remember Diego saying he was nervous about the dancing part of it, and when he started doing it, I was like…

Tonatiuh: He's phenomenal.

Jennifer Lopez: It was so beautiful. It was so great. He was great dance partner for me. I loved it.

Diego Luna: I think it all made sense once you got there. Same thing with Tona. The problem was when I was alone. That's the big change. They work with mirrors. Like mirrors are dangerous to me. You want to avoid mirrors. You're always confronted with what you're doing, and it's difficult to accept. Once I was dancing with them, it was just something else. I always liked telling a story, because it did happen, and I think it summarizes everything. My daughter went to see me at a rehearsal. On the way home, she was like, “Dad, just don't stand too close to Jennifer, because then it shows dad, then it shows that you…” And I go, like, “No, baby, I'm going to be dancing with Jennifer.”

Tonatiuh: Also, hats off, because dancing in a corset is hard. Dancing in a corset, I remember, like the tango. I got strapped in little kitten heels. I wanted the bigger ones, but I was just like, “Oh my God, you have to do this backwards and in heels.” It is intense.

Jennifer Lopez: Yes. Yes, we do.

Diego Luna: It’s theater, because you could see every time Jennifer was getting better and better and getting this and getting that. So you understand that it's something that is alive until the moment you’re shooting. [Then] It's not there, you know, we had an opportunity. (laughs) Then Bill was very clear, like, I'm going to see this, but I'm not going to see this at the moment. Don't worry. It's not theater. We are doing a film. It was a beautiful feeling when we finished shooting, and went to the monitor, because it was like, “Oh, damn, it does look like one of those. We actually got it.” Obviously, it's thanks to the work of all the choreographers and the performers around us. They make it so easy for you.

Jennifer Lopez: To be fair, we didn't have a lot of time.

Tonatiuh: None.

Jennifer Lopez: It was appropriate to be panicked because we were a small independent film.

Tonatiuh: Twelve numbers in 20 days.

Jennifer Lopez: We had to shoot all of these numbers in 20 days. I was in ten of them. (laughs) It was a lot for anybody, even if you're a dancer, to learn all that choreography. We didn't have a long rehearsal period. We weren't together all that long, all of us, and we had to blend it together. And we did. And also, Bill wanted to shoot everything in one take.

Tonatiuh: In one take, if he could get away with it.

Jennifer Lopez: So we had a lot on our plate. It was very, very challenging. I wish we would have had,,, like other musicals have like 12 months to do it. We would have been great. We would have been like…

Tonatiuh: We are great. We are great.

Jennifer Lopez: It's great. I'm saying it would have been easier.

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 10, 2025.

Photo 1 ©2025 Jason Crowley/BFA. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions. All rights reserved.

Photo 2 & 3 ©2025 Jay S. Jacobs. All rights reserved.

Photo 4 to 8 ©2025. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions. All rights reserved.