JENNIFER LOPEZ is truly enjoying the awards season ride.

“This is the industry. This is the town!” Lopez told Variety before accepting her Los Angeles Film Critics Association best supporting actress award on Saturday night. “‘Hustlers’ was a movie we made in 29 days, on a low budget. I didn’t take any money for it because I believed in the material. I believed that it was a great role for me. To be standing here tonight is just, like, mind-blowing.”

With Lopez nominated for a Critics Choice Award this Sunday, a SAG Award next Sunday and coming off a Golden Globe nomination last weekend for her supporting performance as veteran stripper Ramona, she was enthusiastic to accept the acting award honor at the annual ceremony, speaking to press on the red carpet at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Calif., staying for the event’s two-hour-plus duration, and bringing fiancé Alex Rodriguez as her date.

Although Lopez, one of the most successful entertainers in the world, worked for free on “Hustlers,” the movie has gone on to gross more than US$157 million internationally on a US$20 million budget.

“Getting this movie made was not only a labor of love, but one of sheer will and grit,” Lopez said while accepting her award. “I’ve been in this business for a while, longer than I’d like to admit. I’ve had the great privilege to work on many films with great directors, in some really interesting roles to play over the years. But there was something that spoke to me about this film and this role, not only at this time in my life, but at this time in our world. I was offered an opportunity to shine a light on women who are usually spinning on the periphery of the action. Complicated, multidimensional women, beautifully drawn, who are both heroes and victims of a system that preceded them. I immediately felt like I had to get this film made, no matter the obstacle.”

“Parasite” took top honors at Saturday’s Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, winning best picture, best director for Bong Joon-ho and best supporting actor for Song Kang-ho.

Bong, Song, Lee Jeong-eun, “Parasite” producer Kwak Sin-ae and members of Bong’s family, including his wife and son, attended the LAFCA Awards.

“Until now, we’ve mostly been included in the foreign-language film category,” Kwak told the crowd through a translator when accepting best picture with Bong. “To be here and win best director, best picture and best supporting actor has been such a great joy and honor. It’s so very bold.”

“Parasite” has been an awards season favorite, winning the best foreign-language film Golden Globe last weekend, and is nominated for seven Critics’ Choice Awards Sunday and outstanding performance by a cast at next Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards.

When accepting his LAFCA award for best director, Bong told the crowd a story of watching American filmmakers, including Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese, on Korean television for American military stationed there while he grew up in South Korea, and the films’ effect on him later as a filmmaker.

“When I was around 9 or 10 on Friday nights, when my parents were sleeping, I would secretly come out to the living room and watch that channel,” Bong said through a translator. “At the time, because I couldn’t speak English, I would look at the images and reconstruct the narrative on my own.”

(SD-Agencies)