Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Netflix
On Tuesday, June 3, 2026, fans got loud at NYC’s premiere for Office Romance as Jennifer Lopez and co-star Edward James Olmos sat down with content creator and Tefi Talks host Tefi Pessoa for a live recording of Tefi Talks. Their roles in Office Romance as father and daughter, Cruz airline CEO Jackie Cruz and board member and founder Captain Jack Cruz, marked their third collaboration in a project together, following My Family and Selena, their second time starring as father and daughter in 30 years.
The conversation discussed both performers’ monumental careers since their last collaboration — how it inspired her to pursue music and traverse rom-com cinema, while Olmos elaborated on handling the pressures of a long-term career, her deep admiration for her co-star’s on-screen presence, and both their need to portray diverse and successful Latino characters.
The recording also coincided with the NY premiere screening held in Manhattan’s Regal Union Square. Part for J.Lo fans, the film’s crew, and influencers.
Here are some highlights from the talk.
Reuniting 30 Years Later
The conversation started with Olmos and Lopez’s experiences with Selena and the lessons they learned from it. “It’s the best experience I’ve had in bringing up the understanding of our culture,” Olmos reflects. “It really is a movie that today resonates even stronger than it did when we finished it.” Lopez tells, “It’s funny we’ve done three movies together, where I played his mom and he played my son [My Family], and then my dad again [Selena]. And we do have kind of this in chemistry when it comes to acting together, and I felt like we were so lucky to get him to do this. When I read the script and saw the father-daughter dynamic, he was the first person who came to mind, and I thought it would be such a cool thing for us to do it again. It was a great dynamic. It was a different dynamic for us.”
The Draw of Office Romance
In terms of starring and eventually producing Office Romance, it went down to co-star/co-writer Brett Goldstein, recalling him going, “This script, it was written for you. It’s a list of one person, it’s you. If you don’t do it, we’re not making a movie.” And then joking, “And we will kill you.” She also cites Ted Lasso’s romance between Roy Kent and Keely Jones as a factor in getting on board.
She also discussed her draw towards romantic comedy scripts with, “Romantic comedies are movies that you know kind of what’s going to happen. So really it’s about the journey, it’s about chemistry, and it’s about how you get there. And I love romantic comedies because I feel like they so mirror life in a way, in that the one thing that everybody really wants and is looking for is love. That’s the one thing that we all can’t really live without, and we’re always searching for,” shared some of her favorites in her career, including Maid in Manhattan and Monster-in-Law.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 02: Jennifer Lopez and Edward James Olmos speak at the New York Fan Premiere of Office Romance at Regal Union Square on June 02, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Netflix)
Entering Her “Happy Era”
Asked about her life from Selena to now, how 56-year-old J.Lo would chat to 26-year-old self, if she would believe in the accomplishments she’s achieved since, Lopez said she would. “I think I lost my way from her for a while, and now I’m coming back to her, which is why I call this my ‘happy era,’” Lopez expressed, “Because I feel very much like I finally sat down with that little girl. I’ve worked on myself for a long time. My kids are 18, they’re about to leave for college, and I started doing heavy therapy and work on myself.”
The Importance of Storytelling and Representation
Olmos discussed quitting a promising baseball career early in his adolescence and how that led to his father and him not speaking for 2 years. Especially as he found solace in singing and dancing. But with Rita Moreno in West Side Story, the landscape changed. “She really did something for our abilities. Rita Moreno was tremendous. And then the world changed for us.” He subsequently lamented that Latino people are many and that storytelling is more powerful than ever. “The truth is, first of all, we’re a whole lot of people. Second of all, we’re going to be even more,” Olmos said.
Office Romance. (L-R) Jennifer Lopez as Jackie Cruz and Brett Goldstein as Daniel Blanchflower in Office Romance. Cr. Ana Carballosa/Netflix © 2026.
Inspiring the Next Generation
As the conversation shifted to whether Lopez had been approached by any new actresses, Lopez talked about an interaction with Landman’s Paulina Chávez while she recently in London for press.
“There was this actress who just did Landman, which is fantastic. She came up to me and they were like you know, ‘Let’s take a picture.’ I was like, sure. I feel like I knew her from Landman, and I watched the whole thing, and I was like, ‘Hi,’” Lopez remembers. “She’s just kind of quiet and kind of reserved.” She tells how Chávez whispered in a hushed manner, “I love you.” It just melted my heart, and it was just like, ‘Oh my God. Give me a hug.’ And she’s like ‘I just want to be more like you.’
Lopez then concludes with discussing the critical importance of Latino representation in Hollywood, hoping to be the representation for younger Latina artists similar to how Moreno was to her. “It brings tears to my eyes because we need to see ourselves,” J.Lo passionately declares. “I needed to see Rita Moreno in West Side Story or else I would not be here. I would not be here because or I could say, like, oh, ‘maybe I can do that too’.”
