Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez on Work, Love and Marriage

July 26, 2007 — -- It may be the first time salsa singer Marc Anthony gets top billing over his superstar wife, Jennifer Lopez. In their new film "El Cantante" the couple play legendary Puerto Rican salsa star Hector Lavoe and his wife, Puchi.

ABC News Now's "Exclusiva" recently spoke with Anthony and Lopez about their first time working together on the silver screen, and about kids, marriage and love.

The life of Hector and Puchi Lavoe hails back to a time before Latin culture boomed in the 1990s -- a mainstream craze that Lopez's career influenced. She was so hot she became the first person ever to have a No. 1 movie and album at the same time. Lopez's life was constant tabloid fodder, the prime example being her romance with Ben Affleck, which was so public the two became known simply as "Bennifer."

A transformed Lopez is now away from the gossip pages and said she has left the Bennifer era far behind her.

"Since I got married, the focus has really been my marriage and my life. It's nice because I had a run there where I was working nonstop. My whole life was about work, so it was nice to get away from that for a little while," she said.

Lopez has been married to Anthony for a little more than three years. She recently starred in the film "Bordertown" and released a Spanish-language album, "Como Ama una Mujer," but some say "El Cantante" marks her big comeback from a self-imposed break from the industry.

"It was a conscious decision to pull away and find out a different way to live where I wasn't on the cover of tabloids all the time… now I feel like my focus can be on things like ['El Cantante'] that I work on very hard and I'm very proud of… real passion projects you love and hope people enjoy."

The movie not only details the singing career of Hector Lavoe, it also shares the close relationship between the salsa star and his wife. Anthony said the closeness of the two had a deep affect on him during filming.

"We had 11 hours of Puchi tapes she left us of just anecdotes, stories and her take on things. She said [on one of the tapes] that Hector used to cry in her lap when he thought about his voice and how much he hated it," Anthony said. "Imagine having to live as one of the most renowned vocalists and just hate it to the point where you would just cry in your wife's lap… her cradling him -- that hit me."