JLo goes after bad guys

MANILA, Philippines - You’ve seen her perform onstage, critique wannabe singer on TV and tackle an assortment of challenging roles on the big screen. In her recent foray as an actress, superstar Jennifer Lopez, fondly called JLo, goes after the bad guys in the cop drama, Shades of Blue.

When the series premiered in the US in January this year, it was readily renewed for a second season. So last June, the TV cameras started grinding again in the streets of the Big Apple and JLo reprised her role in Shades of Blue.

Not since CSI: (Crime Scene Investigation) New York with Gary Sinise, Melina Kanakaredes, Sela Ward and Eddie Cahill, has a cop drama inevitably drawn us to watch another crime series.

In Shades of Blue, JLo plays Harlee Santos, a NYPD (New York Police Department) detective who is a single mom to a 17-year-old daughter Cristina, so she is forced to deal with her problems alone. She framed her abusive husband for murder that’s why she joined the police force.

Harlee was once a crooked cop in New York’s Brooklyn team. She used to work with dirty cops taking bribes, so her daughter would have a comfortable life. The kid even goes to an expensive, private school and takes cello recitals.

However, Harlee was pinned down for her under-the-table deals, so in exchange for immunity, she had no choice but to turn informant for the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) to fight corruption.

“Between a good cop and a bad cop, there are always shades of blue,” states a teaser in the series. Audiences will see a feisty JLo sporting cropped tresses and firing a gun, running after the lawbreakers, killing criminals in her latest TV caper.

Ray Liotta, best remembered as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, plays Lieutenant Matt Wozniak, a bi-sexual who is married but keeps an affair with another male cop. Matt and Harlee work together excellently as a tandem in the NY police force. He looks after her and also her daughter.

At the helm of the first, two episodes was Barry Levinson, best remembered for his Academy Award-winning job in 1988’s Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. After Levinson, different directors stepped in throughout the first season of Shades of Blue. Interestingly, one of the executive producers is American Idol host Ryan Seacrest.

Apparently, the role was challenging enough for JLo that’s why she didn’t hesitate to start shooting the second season. Yes, she has done cop roles on the big screen (like in Out of Sight), but this one entails a weekly grind for her. Plus, she hasn’t done a TV series in a long while.

Taping the second season of Shades of Blue (read: another 13 episodes) comes on the heels of the final airing of American Idol, which closed last April with its 15th season. It appears that JLo does not run out of things to do in her career that “busy” will seem an understatement for her.

On the big screen this year, she reprised her voice for the animated character of Shira, the saber-tooth tiger in the latest sequel, Ice Age: Collision Course.

Last month, Jennifer guested in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and she stunned everyone in her colorful, dramatic attire created by Filipino designer Michael Cinco. The jumpsuit was adorned with thousands of Swarovski crystals, complete with a cape and long train.

JLo rendered Love Make the World Go Round with actor-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda. The song was specifically earmarked for the Hispanic Federation’s initiative for the victims of the Orlando massacre.

The 47-year-old actress, who has eight-year-old twins Max and Emme with ex-beau Marc Anthony, recently dismissed rumors that she’s pregnant. Her present boyfriend is 29-year-old actor Casper Smart.

JLo is even headlining a Las Vegas residency live performance series, All I Have, exclusively at the Axis Theater of the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino until early 2017.

Meanwhile, JLo recently accepted a new TV movie assignment for HBO. She will play notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco in a yet untitled movie. The late Griselda was known as “The Cocaine Godmother” who changed the American drug trade in the ‘70s and ‘80s.