{"id":2448707,"date":"2019-09-13T14:33:26","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T20:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=883994"},"modified":"2019-09-13T14:33:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T20:33:26","slug":"the-story-behind-jennifer-lopezs-hustlers-pole-dance-to-fiona-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/the-story-behind-jennifer-lopezs-hustlers-pole-dance-to-fiona-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story Behind Jennifer Lopez\u2019s \u2018Hustlers\u2019 Pole Dance to Fiona Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The crime movie Hustlers<\/em>, which arrived in theaters Friday, has already gotten a considerable amount of hype. Part of that has to do with its celebrity-studded cast of women, including Constance Wu<\/a>, Jennifer Lopez<\/a>, Cardi B<\/a> and Lizzo<\/a>. There\u2019s also the film\u2019s source material, a 2015 New York <\/em>magazine article by Jessica Pressler about a group of strippers who embezzled Wall Street bankers, and its writer-director Lorene Scafaria, a woman filmmaker helming a movie with Oscar buzz.<\/p>\n

But when Hustlers<\/em> premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last week, Lopez\u2019s grand performance<\/a> as veteran stripper Ramona focused on a scene where she\u2019s introduced to the audience through a sultry, intense pole dance to Fiona Apple\u2019s<\/a> \u201cCriminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to think that it\u2019s a song that Ramona chose for herself,\u201d Scafaria tells Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cCriminal\u201d wasn\u2019t always intended for the scene, and in fact wasn\u2019t even written in the script. Lopez initially requested a different song, and although Scafaria thought the tempo was too slow, she \u201cknew what [Lopez] was going for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I suggested Fiona Apple\u2019s \u2018Criminal,\u2019 she said, \u2018Oh hell yeah,’\u201d Scafaria recalls.<\/p>\n

Lopez and Hustlers<\/em> choreographer Johanna Sapakie edited the song down to the two-minute version heard in the film and worked together on the accompanying pole dance. But Lopez actually began pole-dance training two-and-a-half months prior to shooting, training rigorously with Sapakie two to three times per week, with no dance double.<\/p>\n

Even with Lopez being a world-class dancer throughout her career, training for the pole in such a short amount of time was challenging. According to Scafaria, Lopez called up her co-star, the rapper and former stripper Cardi B, ahead of her scheduled training to ask for advice. When Lopez asked if Cardi was good at pole dancing, she responded, \u201cI\u2019m great at it now<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the moment we started talking about it, [Lopez] knew that it would require a bit of a transformation,\u201d said Scafaria.<\/p>\n

Due to the constrained shoot schedule on the movie \u2013 the whole film was shot in 29 days \u2013 Lopez and Sapakie began choreographing the \u201cCriminal\u201d scene before Apple had even given permission to use the song. \u201cIt was one of those things where it felt like, gosh, we are in trouble if we don\u2019t get the rights. We didn\u2019t really have a backup while we were shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Markey, the music supervisor on the film, got a call from Scafaria while Lopez was workshopping the scene in Miami. \u201cLorene was like, \u2018It\u2019s working beautifully!\u2019,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I was like, that\u2019s great, but I don\u2019t know if Fiona will license this for film or TV.\u201d While Apple has, on rare occasion, licensed out her music \u2013 \u201cPaper Bag\u201d appeared in Bridesmaids<\/em> \u2013 \u201cCriminal\u201d had never specifically been licensed out for a film before.<\/p>\n

Scafaria and Markey pulled out all the stops to get \u201cCriminal.\u201d In addition to two letters that Scafaria and Markey each sent to Apple, the crew was able to get a rough edit of the scene sent over to the musician, so she could see how \u201cCriminal\u201d would play out in the film. After that, Apple gave them the green light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe film did the heavy lifting for us,\u201d says Markey. \u201cI think that the cast really helped us, and the fact that it was all women \u2013<\/span> and all very revered women \u2013<\/span> it really helped everything to the millionth power.\u201d On the anticipation that the scene has gotten, even before Hustlers<\/em> was in wide release, Markey said, \u201cThis is something you dream about, as someone who chooses music for film \u2026 people are excited about it, and that feels exuberant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the songs in Hustlers<\/em> were scripted, with various needle drops acting as the film\u2019s score. But when it came to Ramona\u2019s big entrance scene, Scafaria left it open to interpretation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the script, it said, \u2018Ramona does one final flourish and then crosses the room,’\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cBut when you cast Jennifer Lopez, you get the whole enchilada, the full monty \u2026 That scene didn\u2019t really exist until Jennifer Lopez was on board.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The crime movie Hustlers, which arrived in theaters Friday, has already gotten a considerable amount of hype. Part of that has to do with its celebrity-studded cast of women, including Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B and Lizzo. There\u2019s also the film\u2019s source material, a 2015 New York magazine article by Jessica Pressler about a group of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 19:22:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}