Lone Star lovers
Hollywood power couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck set to play temporary role in the Austin scene
Paparazzi alert! Get ready for some sightings in Austin of the Hollywood power couple of the moment — Bennifer, aka Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.
Celebrity gossip website TMZ (of course) reports exclusively that Affleck is renting a luxury condo in Austin while shooting a movie here. JLo won’t be “shacking up,” as TMZ puts it, with Affleck in Austin. But you can be sure she’ll be jetting in to visit her beau.
No word on where the temporary abode is — a downtown high-rise, perhaps? — but TMZ reports that “crews are already rushing to prepare the condo, bringing in furniture and setting up appliances.” Pretty soon, Bennifer may be “Texas two-stepping,” as TMZ portrays it, in their new pad.
JLo and Affleck recently rekindled their relationship after she and former professional baseball player Alex Rodriquez called it quits in April, ahead of their planned wedding. JLo and Affleck were together from 2002 and 2004. They met after being cast as co-stars of Gigli, a 2003 rom-com that bombed at the box office and now ranks among the worst films ever made. JLo officially ended her engagement to Affleck in 2004.
Austin-based filmmaker Robert Rodriguez is directing Affleck in Hypnotic, which is scheduled to kick off filming here September 20. Filming initially was supposed to start in April 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The action thriller will follow a detective who becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program while investigating a string of high-end crimes,” according to the Deadline entertainment news website.
