Jennifer Lopez goes to war against A.I. in a new Netflix movie

It may have happened later in her career, but Jennifer Lopez is embracing her newfound action-hero image.

“It's funny that at this point in my career, that I – you would think I did all these action movies when I was like in my 20s or whatever. And to be able as a kind of, you know, a woman of colour, to be able at this age, to be, like you say, kind of the action hero of the movie,” said Lopez, who stars in the new Netflix film “Atlas.”

“That is really kind of, I think incredibly, you know, inspiring for myself and groundbreaking that Netflix or any big studio would go, ‘Yeah, that's the person we want in this role right now….It's an exciting thing. Yeah, I’m - yeah. Action Mom!”

“Atlas” follows Atlas Shepherd (Lopez), a brilliant data analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence. She joins a mission led by Colonel Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown) to capture a renegade robot named Harlan (Simu Liu) with whom she shares a mysterious past. But when Harlan creates an AI army with plans to take over the world, her only hope is to work with – and trust – AI.

Both Atlas the character – and Lopez herself – know the difficulty of trusting.

“That's what I liked about the movie. Is somebody really opening up and trusting somebody again for the first time after you've been traumatized? And to your question about kind of being in the public eye for so long, it is harder to trust. You don't know why people are coming up to you. You don't know what they want. You don't know how genuine they are,” said Lopez, who also starred in the Netflix action film "Mother" last year.

The multi-hyphenate megastar also discussed how her idea of trust has changed through the years and as her fame exponentially increased.

“I'll tell you this: who I was 25 years ago, in a sense, is very different than I am today. I was very open and I always like to still say like I'm the girl who likes to dance on the tables…but at the end of the day, that person who was just kind of open and kind of exciting, would talk to anybody and do all the things, now sits in the corner table by herself,” said Lopez. “It can be tricky to just be giving all the time, all the time and not filling up your own cup.”

“Atlas” premieres May 24 on Netflix