FBI Recruits J.Lo

By Stephen M. Silverman

04/17/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

J.Lo as a G-lady? Actress-singer-fashion jawdropper Jennifer Lopez, 30, has scuttled her plans to portray Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in a feature film biography and is instead negotiating to star as an FBI agent for director Tony Scott in the crime thriller, "Taking Lives," reports Variety. Based on a Michael Pye novel, "Lives" follows a female crime-fighter for the bureau who is hot on the trail of a "Talented Mr. Ripley"-like killer who does away with strangers and then assumes their identities. Since the project was first announced a few years ago, director Scott ("Top Gun") has reportedly tried to woo Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett to take the starring role. As for what became of Lopez's long-simmering Kahlo project, which was to have been produced by Francis Ford Coppola, Variety says that a rival film starring Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Geoffrey Rush, Edward Norton and Ashley Judd scooped Lopez. Lopez's latest movie, "Angel Eyes," is due to open May 18.