We’re still not over the Hustlers snubs at this year’s Oscars—but we’re loving this new story about Constance Wu’s time researching her role as the stripper Destiny in the movie.
Wu appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Monday,February 17 and revealed some behind-the-scenes intel about her preparation. “I did work at a strip club to get ready for Hustlers,” she said. “I went undercover. I gave lap dances to strangers.”
But that’s not all. The Fresh Off the Boat star actually took home some serious cash for her efforts. “I’m not lying! I made $600 my first night. I am not being funny, and it was not funny,” Wu said. “I put fake tattoos on my neck, I changed my hair… You can’t duplicate the first time you walk into a club and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to have a job here,’ and then you go work that night.”
Watch the interview below.
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In Hustlers, Wu plays a single mom in New York City who joins forces with Jennifer Lopez’s character, Ramona, and two other dancer friends to steal money and valuables from rich clients during the 2008 financial crisis. The film, written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, was based on a true story chronicled in a New York magazine article.
Courtesy of STXfilms
Constance Wu previously said she visited a number of strip clubs to get into character and even installed a pole in her house. “I went to a lot of strip clubs in San Francisco — that’s what I spent my Christmas Eve doing,” she told Vulture.
“I installed a pole in my living room. I took pole classes; I took private coaching sessions,” she added. “And this was all stuff I paid for by myself before we even started the movie. I became friends with a couple of strippers.”
Given the box office success of the film, we’d say all that research paid off.
Besides, not playing a dancer isn‘t a big loss for Stiles. “I don’t want to say that I’d be too shy [to play a stripper], because I feel like that’s shaming the women that do it,” she says. “But it would’ve taken a lot for me to have the guts to do that—and balance on those stiletto platform heels. It would have taken a lot of training.”
That doesn’t mean she didn‘t prep for the movie, of course. Stiles met with Pressler ahead of filming after reaching out to her on Instagram. Both women were working in New York at the time, but they had young kids and finding childcare was difficult. So, they arranged a play date. “I brought my son over to her apartment, and he proceeded to destroy her living room while we talked about everything that led to this point.” Stiles asked Pressler every question she could think of—how she found out about the story, how she got in touch with the women, the process of turning it all into a film.
“There were so many interesting anecdotes I took away from our meeting,” Stiles says, “but I also really learned that she’s got a lot of compassion for the people she writes about. She showed up at Rosie’s—the woman the Constance Wu character is based on—with a box of cannoli as a sort of peace offering to say, ‘I’m not here to trash you, and I’m not here to take advantage of you. I want to know more about you, the person. I’m on your side.’” Stiles says she’d also text Pressler during filming with questions like, “How much do you use a notepad?”
The goal was to not do an imitation of Pressler but rather learn about her process. “I told her we were going to take liberties,” Stiles says. “We took a lot of them, with my wardrobe in particular. I think Lorene wanted me to wear a Chanel jacket to represent privilege, that Elizabeth is somebody who had a lot more options growing up than probably Ramona or Destiny did.”
Stiles with costar Keke Palmer
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for AT&T
Stiles found other ways to channel Pressler. “I thought there was something so great about being the only person that has compassion for these women,” she explains. “The dancers run in a world where they’re constantly being exploited and taken advantage of. My character develops a close relationship to them, and it’s the only person who’s not trying to get something from them. She’s actually looking at them going, ‘Who are you, and what’s your version of the story?’”
This did, of course, mean she wasn’t in the movie’s biggest set pieces. “I wasn’t at the club, which looked like it’s a lot of fun to film,” she says. “My scenes were a lot quieter.” Because of that, Stiles didn’t have a full view of how Scafaria’s vision would come together. “Once I saw the movie, I was happy to be the character in the film that grounds it and brings it back to a bit more of a serious note.”
There are so many fantastic moments in the new movie Hustlers, but one stands out above the rest to me. (Caution: Spoilers for the film ahead.) It’s when Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) and Destiny (Constance Wu), two strippers fresh off making some serious cash, go shopping for a new car. Once they’ve settled on one they like—it’s expensive, of course—they turn on the radio, and Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” starts blasting. “That’s my motherfuckin’ song,” Ramona says, her voice oozing with enthusiasm and excitement. This is directly followed by a money-making montage set to Spears’ 2007 hit, in which we see Destiny, Ramona, and their stripper friends literally get more: more money, more clients, more everything. We watch the Wall Street dudes who frequent the strip clubs line their pockets, as well. The scene is rich: decadent, delicious, and totally indicative of the pre-financial crisis era it’s set in.
This is just one example of how Hustlers uses sound to tell its story. The movie, based on The Cut’s 2015 article “The Hustlers at Scores,” centers on a group of strippers who used drugs, alcohol, and sheer sex appeal to scam their wealthy clients out of thousands. It’s the type of story that demands a loud, epic soundtrack—and Hustlers certainly delivers.
“Most of the music choices were also written into the script,” Lorene Scafaria, the movie’s director, tells Glamour. “I had obviously imagined scenes to these songs, and we shot to these songs, but you never know if you’re going to get the rights.”
She did get the rights, thankfully, and the movie is better for it. The aforementioned money-making scene just wouldn’t have popped the same way without Spears’ breathy, distorted vocals. “[‘Gimme More’] was a song that was really a perfect time capsule of that era, both of the Wall Street guys and the girls working,” Scafaria says. “Being able to intercut to that song was crucial.”
Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu listening to “Gimme More” in Hustlers.
“Crucial” is a perfect word to describe the music in Hustlers. All the sonic choices in this film feel deliberate and necessary. Take the fact that Ramona, a seasoned stripper, shows newcomer Destiny some tricks of the trade in a scene set to classical music. The takeaway? Pole-dancing is an art that requires the same level of talent and discipline as playing the piano.
Or how about Ramona’s first dance in the film, set to “Criminal” by Fiona Apple. The song’s title alone makes it perfect for Ramona, who eventually becomes a criminal, but read some of the lyrics: “It’s a sad, sad world/When a girl will break a boy/Just because she can.” The entire plot of Hustlers centers on women metaphorically “breaking” morally-corrupt men. Of course, their reasons are a bit deeper than “because they can,” but the takeaway is the same. Scafaria could’ve picked any vacant electronic song to soundtrack this scene, but instead she chose something specific.
“We’ve seen so many scenes in strip clubs in other movies and TV shows, but so few from a dancer’s perspective,” Hustlers director, writer, and producer Lorene Scafaria tells me. The film, based on a New York magazine article by Jessica Pressler, stars Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez as the ringleaders of a group of strippers who scammed their wealthy Wall Street clients using a mix of drugs, smarts, and sex appeal. “I was just really excited to walk in their shoes, literally, tell the story through their eyes, and explore a world that maybe we think we know but don’t really unless we’ve worked there.”
That desire to tell the women’s lives from their perspective—and understanding the limitations and challenges in doing so—is why Scafaria was the best person to put this story to screen. In another’s hands, the film could have easily turned into an over-sexed romp a la Showgirls or a weepy cautionary tale. Scafaria hits the right tone, though: She doesn’t shy away from all the fun and nudity one might find in a strip club without sacrificing the gravitas that happens as the dancers’ lives spin out of control.
Lili Reinhart, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, and Constance Wu play a group of strippers who con their wealthy clients.
Barbara Nitke/STX Entertainment
Scafaria says she did a lot of research beyond the source material to get it right. In addition to meeting with dancers and other club employees who worked during the movie’s time period (roughly 2007 to 2013), she hired a stripper consultant to read an early script and be available on set during filming. She also looked at the article in a new light. “Reading between the lines of the article, I got inspiration because I thought, This is a really interesting friendship story,” she tells me. “I wanted to incorporate that part of it as much as anything else.”
All that research and careful attention to tone paid off: The film has an 87% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and critics are already calling it a serious Oscars contender.
So what does it take to create the movie of the year? Scafaria breaks down the film’s biggest moments and themes, below. Some spoilers ahead.
The Athleticism
When Lopez’s character, Ramona, first teaches Wu’s Destiny how to pole dance, it’s set to Chopin. The message: Pole dancing is an art form, requiring as much skill as any master classical pianist. Scafaria tells me she wrote the Chopin music cues into the script because the classical composer’s songs are frequently taught to student pianists—a fitting comparison to Ramona, who shows Destiny the ropes of the strip club. “These are songs that require a lot of flexibility and sincerity,” Scafaria says. “To me, that felt like what’s required of these dancers on the pole. The Chopin pieces were always the sound of the movie, and the sound of the work that the women do.”
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But they’re not just artists—they’re athletes. Watch Lopez’s pole-dancing workout videos for proof of that. “I wanted to show these women in power and in control,” Scafaria says. “In a lot of ways, I approached it like a sports movie because I wanted to highlight the athleticism of what they do, the strength that’s involved. There’s a lot of beauty and grace to it.”
The Cameos
The inclusion of music’s hottest names Cardi B and Lizzo in Hustlershas been much publicized, but they’re doing more than just lending star power to the IMDB page. Both women play strippers at the club during its last glory days—right before the economic recession hit—and their time on screen is equal parts hilarious and nuanced. “It was very exciting to see women like Cardi and Lizzo just come and coexist in the same movie as all of these other performers from a lot of different walks of life,” Scafaria says. “Actors, singers, dancers, strippers…to see them all in one room together was really something.”
Cardi B was particularly brilliant casting because she’s famously worked as a stripper before. Scafaria says Cardi brought her signature high energy to the set. “I wanted her to make the lines her own,” she says. “If anything didn’t feel authentic to her, I wanted her to call it out. But it wasn’t until we were there shooting scenes that I really got to see her bring it to life. She’s such a natural. Everybody knows how funny she is—she’s an incredible personality—so I’m sure nobody’s surprised that the kinds of improvisation she could throw around [was amazing].”
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Jennifer Lopez‘s new movie Hustlers since the full cast was announced. The comedy, based on this 2015 New York magazine article, centers on a group of strippers who scam their rich, sleazy male clients out of thousands of dollars. That concept and Lopez alone are enough to hook me, but check out who else is in the film: Constance Wu, Lili Reinhart, Cardi B, Julia Stiles, KeKe Palmer, and Trace Lysette. It’s literally a who’s-who of stars.
And it looks like filming has already started. Lopez and Wu were photographed on the set of Hustlers Thursday, March 28 sporting incredible looks. The context of what they filmed is unknown, but I’m already deeply invested. Take a look at the photos, below, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
At some point in Hustlers, Lopez literally feeds Wu a smoothie. Unless, of course, this just happened off-camera. Hydration is important!
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But I’m going with this being a plot point. There’s no way Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu drink shopping mall smoothies. They only drink diamond-infused water or some other rich-person beverage (kidding).
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Can we talk about this dog, though? He or she is absolutely a part of the strippers’ scam.
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See the look on the dog’s face? That’s the look of a skilled, savvy scammer. J.Lo doesn’t have to do anything except sit back and chew her gum. The dog has it covered.
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Seriously, I need to be this dog.
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Actually, wait, never mind. Now J.Lo is pissed at the dog. I don’t want to be this dog.
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What are Wu and Lopez glaring at here? The dog? What did that dog do?!
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Wu’s dress here is absolutely fire.
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As is Lopez’s fuzzy purple coat. Please bury me in this exact outfit.
Yup, this movie is about to be so iconic. Here’s live footage of Jennifer Lopez accepting all the money is my bank account and celebrating with a smoothie.
