Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes have ‘Maid in Manhattan’ reunion

Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes had a warm Maid in Manhattan reunion at Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch and Creative Impact Awards brunch at the Parker Palm Springs.

At the event, J.Lo was honored with Variety’s Legend and Groundbreakers award, presented by her ex co-star Fiennes.

While presenting her with the award, Fiennes remembered, “Once upon a time in another life and perhaps in a different epoch of movie storylines, there was this Republican senatorial candidate mooching about in a hotel in Manhattan, and there was as well in this same other life a maid in this hotel.”

“This wannabe Republican senator was struck by her good looks, but he couldn’t quite truly see her. This maid was masking something in her demure and mindful way. She was sweet and charming, but actually she was concealing something. She was hiding a kind of superpower,” the Conclave star recalled.

“Behind this maid’s mask there was indeed a force, a force of creativity, a force of action, something so powerful which just couldn’t stop..”

“In this life, in this story, she has already been flying with determination from an early age, because I think she knows that she has something inside her which she must honor as she flies high. She is honoring and fulfilling her extraordinary creative spirit, and sharing it, shining a light on the lives of so many people, inspiring them and brightening their days,” Fiennes said.

“We really must stop meeting in hotels like this,” Lopez quipped of their meeting in a hotel, which is how they meet in Maid in Manhattan.

In her speech, she reflected on going against “naysayers” to make it in Hollywood against all odds.

“I set out to follow a burning passion against the advice of everyone around me. How do you do what I wanted to do when your life circumstances, your race, or even your gender create an idea that it’s practically impossible to go from a tenement in the Bronx to starring in Hollywood movies? It’s just too preposterous to fathom,” the Hustlers actress said.

“There is no straight path to success, and along the way we fall, we rise, we fall better, we rise stronger, breaking ground, breaking in and becoming the architects of our own destinies,” Jennifer Lopez said.