DATE: Saturday, March 22, 1997              TAG: 9703220050

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  108 lines

LOPEZ IS BURSTING INTO HOLLYWOOD SPOTLIGHT

GET OUT OF the way. Here comes Jennifer Lopez!

The fiery Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx is going to be difficult to miss in the next three months. She'll be starring in three movies - all at once.

``I'll be the Queen of the Malls,'' Lopez said with a laugh during a New York interview. ``It looks like I'll be in half the movies out - all at once. Hey, I didn't plan it that way, but I have been working steadily. Look at me. I'm going to be an old woman if I keep up this work pace. But what a good problem to have.

``Of course, `Selena' is, maybe, the best role. I'd already been in `Jack' with Robin Williams, and I was in `Money Train' with Woody Harrelson, but none of that seemed to matter. The minute I was cast in the title role of `Selena,' suddenly everyone recognized me. I was mobbed on the streets. Her fans are phenomenal.''

At first announcement, fans of the late Latino recording star were not thrilled that a Puerto Rican rather than a Mexican had been signed for the role.

``I'm all in favor of Latinos playing Latinos,'' Lopez said, ``but saying that a Puerto Rican couldn't play Selena, a Texas girl, is taking it a little far. Selena looked like me. She was dark and she was, well, curvy. She never hid who she was, and I don't either. I think I won the fans over when I went to Selena's home town, the oil town Lake Jackson, Texas, and lived with her family for a month. I'm not her, but I want to celebrate her joy for life - to get that exuberant on-stage presence. I kinda asked her fans to work with me on it. They came forward.''

Selena Quintanilla Perez was gunned down at age 23 in 1995, bringing to a tragic end a brief but meteoric career as a Tejano singer - a mixture of rock, rhythm and blues, polka, pop and traditional Latin influences. She had already won a Grammy and had placed five albums on the Billboard charts at the same time. She had just begun her crossover into the English-speaking market with her album ``Dreaming of You.'' One week before her death (shot by Yolanda Saldivar, the president of her fan club), she appeared before 61,000 fans at the Houston Astrodome.

Lopez was chosen to play her after a nationwide talent search in which thousands of Latino girls were auditioned. Warner Bros. claims it was the biggest search since an actress was sought to play Scarlett O'Hara. But, as with ``Gone With the Wind,'' the search ended with a performer being signed who was close at hand in the first place. Lopez had appeared in director Gregory Nava's film ``My Family/Mi Familia'' several years ago.

Lopez starred as the sexy school teacher who enthralls Robin Williams in ``Jack.'' While ``Selena'' may be the showiest role, it is by no means the thrust in her sure-bet bid for stardom. Coming soon to movie theaters are:

``Blood and Wine,'' a dark melodrama in which she co-stars with Jack Nicholson. ``I taught Jack to salsa,'' Lopez said. ``He only stepped on my foot once. He's pretty good, really. I wasn't intimidated at all by working with him. Jack is a great deal of fun on a set. He likes to get on with it and get it done.''

``Anaconda,'' which opens April 11, was filmed in New Zealand and is designed to scare the yell out of people who are squeamish about snakes or spiders. (And who isn't?) It co-stars Jon Voight, Ice Cube and Eric Stoltz.

``U-Turn,'' which is now before the cameras, is directed by two-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone. It's a small-town thriller and will co-star Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton and Claire Danes. ``I play an Apache Indian woman and I have lots of scenes with Sean,'' she said. The part, at one time, was set for Sharon Stone.

``How about that?'' Lopez exclaimed, as if she hadn't known about it. ``They must have had quite a time, choosing between me and Sharon Stone. Right?''

After all this, Lopez is taking time out for a honeymoon. A spring wedding is planned for her and Ojani Noa, a Cuban waiter she met in Miami while she was filming ``Blood and Wine.''

``I took one look at him and said `That's the man I'm going to marry,' '' she said. ``He proposed on the day we completed filming `Selena.' I don't want to be one of those girls who just makes movies about girls in love. I want a little of it myself.''

Pausing and with a twinkling eye, she added, ``Actually, I want a lot of it. Having fans may be nice, but they're a crowd. I need a little more personal life too.''

The mischievous Miss Lopez takes all her new fame lightly. ``I grew up in the Bronx, where people always told me that Latinos had no chance in Hollywood. My favorite movie was `West Side Story.' I saw it over and over. I never noticed that Natalie Wood wasn't really a Puerto Rican girl. I grew up always wanting to play Anita (Rita Moreno's Oscar-winning role), but as I got older, I wanted to be Maria. I went to dance classes every week.''

Her break came in 1990 when she won a national competition to become a Fly Girl in the hit television series ``In Living Color.''

``Selena'' has already drawn criticism because of the way it glosses over the singer's death. Little is shown about the conflict with Yolanda Saldivar that led to the fatal shooting. Nava says, bluntly, ``The name of the movie is `Selena,' not `Yolanda.' We're celebrating the American dream. This is the story of a family and how they went from rags to riches.''

Lopez added, ``It's a story about Selena's life, not her death. To have emphasized the death would have made it a TV-movie.

``What I really loved about Selena, and I think all Latino women do, is that she was herself. She actually grew up in Texas and didn't even speak Spanish. She had to learn Spanish when she broke into the Mexican market. She dyed her hair, but blacker. She never tried to be blonde and thin.

``She was Latino and proud of it. I think she was admired because she didn't have to change. Rita Hayworth (who was actually Rita Cansino) and Raquel Welch could only become stars after they disguised themselves.

``Selena could be who she was and, as for me, for once, I could be proud of my big bottom. Latino men like curvy women with big bottoms, not skinny types. In my movies, I've always had costume people looking at me a little awry and immediately fitting me out with things to hide my bottom. I know it. They didn't say, but I know it. With this film, it was different.'' ILLUSTRATION: WARNER BROS.

In the biographical ``Selena,'' Jennifer Lopez stars as the Tejano

singing star who was slain at age 23. KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW

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