Jennifer Lopez Calls This the Love of Her Life–and It’s Not Alex Rodriguez

Jennifer Lopez‘s love don’t cost a thing—but there’s one thing that has her love for life. 

As one of the stars of Vanity Fair‘s highly anticipated annual Hollywood Issue cover, the Hustlers actress got to talking about the “love of my life.” While she is famously engaged to longtime beau Alex Rodriguez, the triple threat was referencing another special something. 

“I would say dancing and music are my first loves, but acting is the love of my life,” she told Vanity Fair. “You have your first love and the love of your life, and acting is the love of my life. I feel like every time I take on a role, it is only about becoming somebody that I’m not. When they go in and see me, they don’t see J. Lo—they see the maid, they see the stripper, they see who they’re supposed to see, because I’m able to still give you the suspension of disbelief. That is the challenge of it for me, but also the thrill of it for me.”

And, while she’s had many unforgettable roles in the course of her decade-long career, there’s one character that mistakenly got away.  

“There was a movie called Unfaithful. And it was offered to me and the script, for me, wasn’t all the way there. I should have known that Adrian Lyne was going to kill it, but I didn’t,” Lopez told Vanity Fair of the 2002 film, for which Diane Lane earned her first Oscar nomination. “Diane Lane was so perfect for it, and it was obviously meant to be her, but when I think about that…I want to literally, like, shoot my toe off. I do.”

Of course, more than 10 years since that movie, Lopez is certainly not hurting for her own success. Following the hit Hustlers, which garnered her Golden Globe and SAG Award nods, the triple threat is heading to the Super Bowl halftime show stage in February. And, if the past more than 30 years are any proof, Lopez has plenty up her sleeve for the months and years to come.  

Still, Lopez has a much more private dream for the future of her one-of-a-kind life. 

“It’s always a career thing that they ask about, and I think, Oh, yeah. Direct. But if you’re saying bucket list, I would say I would love to live somewhere other than the United States, in a small town in Italy, or on the other side of the world, in Bali. Find another life where it’s a little bit more simple and organic and where I get to ride a bike, and buy bread, and put it in my basket, and then go home and put jelly on it, and just eat and paint, or sit in a rocking chair where there was a beautiful view of an olive tree or an oak tree and I could just smell,” she described. “I have fantasies like that.”

The Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands on January 28.