Ain’t it funny how the key to a successful sex scene may just be some good food.
Nearly nine years after Ryan Guzman heated up the big screen with Jennifer Lopez in The Boy Next Door, the actor is reflecting on the thriller and sharing his favorite things about his costar.
“I mean, that she brought pizza,” he shared on the Monday, June 24, episode of iHeartRadio’s “Whine Down With Jana Kramer” podcast. “I remember — mind you this is, like, right before our sex scene — so that’s very ballsy of you. Most people would only eat salad and whatnot. We here grabbing pizza.”
All jokes aside, Guzman, 36, remembered being in awe of Lopez, 54, and how much she could do at one time.
“From her, I learned so much,” he shared. “I think at the time, she was doing two television shows, a movie, a book and then prepping for a tour. I was like, ‘I feel lazy. I’m only acting on this movie.’ It was just a wealth of knowledge from her and an insight on the life of an A-lister. I was not prepared.”
When the 2015 movie was released, Guzman remembered cameras being “everywhere.” As a result, he found himself on TMZ and inside countless publications.
“That was like a rocket ship,” he added. “I did not know what her life entailed until we started doing the promotional stuff for that movie.”
While doing promotional work for the film, Guzman and Lopez were frequently asked about their chemistry and the complexity of filming sex scenes.
During one interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Guzman was asked whether he ever had a crush on his costar growing up. “I used a little bit of my own experiences as well as my friends’ experiences,” he said in January 2015. “She’s probably gonna hate me for saying this, but I wasn’t the lust-filled boy after Jennifer, but I know quite a few friends that were. When I booked the role, my close friends back home and their wives or fiancées went crazy.”
That same month, Lopez admitted that sex scenes weren’t the easiest moments to capture for the camera.
“They’re awkward and a little bit uncomfortable, but you try to get into it to make it real,” Lopez said while visiting On Air With Ryan Seacrest. “I like keeping it professional. I don’t need it to get messy at work.”
Since the film, Guzman has found success as firefighter Eddie Diaz in ABC’s 9-1-1. As for Lopez, she recently appeared in the Netflix movie Atlas and continues to balance a variety of projects including music and producing.