Everything Jennifer Lopez Did To Prepare For Those "Taxing" Fight Scenes In "The Mother"

“Of course, when we’re doing the actual fight, we’re not using a real knife either.”

Jennifer Lopez is mother. No, really, she’s the star of The Mother, Netflix’s latest hit film.

Axelle / FilmMagic

The film, which premiered last week on the streaming service, is the latest in the actor’s catalog of action films. She starred in Out of Sight, Parker, Enough, and now The Mother.

Netflix

Come to think of it, that impressive pole dancing scene in Hustlers could — and should — certainly be considered an action sequence for all the intensity and precision it required.

This background aside, Lopez still had intense training to do for the film, which included knife fights and sniper rifles. She opened up about the “taxing” prep for the film in a new video on Netflix’s Twitter.

Ana Carballosa/Netflix

In the video, Lopez said she had to master knife fighting, hand-to-hand combat, and sniper training. Turns out, her background as a dancer proved to be super helpful for her physical training.

Kevin Mazur / WireImage

“Being a dancer really helps you when it comes to learning steps of things. Even in the fighting, it’s like learning a technique of a new kind of dance,” she said in the video. “And to look like you know how you’re doing it, you really have to kind of master the body positions and movements.”

On screen over the years, she’s fired guns, fought off a monstrous anaconda, and fought back against an abusive ex. But The Mother was the first time Lopez recalled knife fighting.

Ana Carballosa/Netflix

“There’s a dummy knife that you start with, and you don’t wanna play with anything that’s not it,” she said, laughing. “Of course, when we’re doing the actual fight, we’re not using a real knife either.”

Lopez also had to re-learn how to shoot a sniper rifle. She was initially trained how to do so over two decades ago for the 1998 film Out of Sight. The re-training included putting the rifle together, positioning her body to look “convincing” while shooting, and simply shooting the actual rifle.

Eric Milner/Netflix © 2023.

“Some guys were military who were helping me with the guns, we would get together a couple of times a week and we’d do it for hours a day,” she said.

No matter how rigorous, Lopez enjoyed the fight scenes — and audiences are clearly loving her in the film. So it’s a win for everyone.

Eric Milner/Netflix

“Actually, it was a lot of fun, once you get into it,” she said of the training. “It’s taxing, though. It takes a lot of adrenaline.”

Check out Lopez’s full details about how she trained for The Mother below:

How Jennifer Lopez got her body ready to perform the intense fight scenes in The Mother. pic.twitter.com/0UhJGJ0cyO

— Netflix (@netflix) May 15, 2023

Twitter: @Netflix