Netflix Is Streaming A Ted Lasso Actor's Star-Studded 2026 Romantic Comedy

There's a new original romantic comedy from Netflix out now, and it stars "Ted Lasso" standout Brett Goldstein, who also penned the film. Oh, also? It stars Jennifer Lopez, a titan of the romantic comedy genre.

"Office Romance" tells the story of airline CEO Jackie Cruz (Lopez), a go-getter whose father Captain Jack Cruz (Edward James Olmos, reuniting with Lopez decades after "Selena") founded AirCruz and put his daughter in charge. Thankfully, she's quite capable, but Jackie is also embroiled in a lawsuit involving gates at Dallas Forth Worth International Airport and needs legal assistance. That's where Daniel Blanchflower comes in. Daniel, an in-house attorney at Cruz Airlines played by Goldstein, ends up providing invaluable help to Jackie ... and the two can't ignore the sparks flying between them, despite the strict no-dating policy at AirCruz.

Lopez and Goldstein are, to be perfectly frank, undeniable together — and they're aided by a ridiculously stacked supporting cast that includes Betty Gilpin (as Jackie's best friend and right hand Sydney), Tony Hale (as a beleaguered human resources representative), Amy Sedaris (as a ditzy hotel employee), and Bradley Whitford (as the high-powered lawyer that Daniel replaces), just to name a few. Obviously, these performances are helped tremendously by the script written by Goldstein and his "Ted Lasso" cohort Joe Kelly, as well as direction from Ol Parker (who also helmed the much less successful "Ticket to Paradise"), but "Office Romance" has a truly solid foundation underneath its fluffy façade as a simple romantic comedy. 

Goldstein has earned a lot of goodwill thanks to his breakout role as Roy Kent in "Ted Lasso," but everyone knows Lopez is amazing in romantic comedies ... and this is her first since 2022. Plus, it's an interesting twist on her usual work in the genre.

If you're at all familiar with Jennifer Lopez's body of work, you know that, throughout her career, she typically plays the person with less "power," so to speak, in the arrangement. What we mean by that is that she's the titular maid in "Maid in Manhattan" who falls in love with Ralph Fiennes' politician Chris Marshall, the titular wedding planner in "The Wedding Planner" who falls in love with groom Steve Edison (Matthew McConaughey), or a woman desperately trying to snatch power from her mother-in-law in "Monster-in-Law." In "Office Romance," Lopez plays the powerful and seemingly untouchable CEO of AirCruz, whom everyone respects and fears ... until Daniel manages to break through her defenses.

In an interview with Brett Goldstein and Lopez in Netflix's in-house publication Tudum, Lopez addressed this directly. "'Office Romance' is the first time I'm the boss. I'm not playing someone with all these aspirations, who's the maid or the wedding planner working for the rich people," she told the streamer's outlet. "Jackie built this company. It's usually the woman who is hoping to be saved in romantic comedies. But that isn't the case at all here. Jackie is very powerful. She has her own life. She's not really looking for love. She's a very different kind of character for me to play."

It's lucky that Lopez was ready to get on board with playing Jackie Cruz — and truly, she's really good in this movie! — because elsewhere in that Tudum article, Goldstein made a startling confession. In a huge leap of faith, he and Joe Kelly wrote this role specifically for her simply because they were such big fans of her romantic comedies.

In that same Tudum interview, Brett Goldstein said that he and Joe Kelly felt annoyed that they hadn't seen a truly great romantic comedy in quite some time, and they just decided to ... do something about it. "We felt like we hadn't seen a great one in a long time," Goldstein said. "We were both like, 'Who's your dream person to make a rom-com with?' Without hesitation, we were both like, 'J.Lo, because she's the best rom-com actor.' So we decided to write one for her." He continued:

"We thought this was never going to happen. We had never met Jennifer — as far as I was concerned, she was a mythical creature. But we could write it as a dream. So we sent it to her with a note that said, 'We wrote this for you. You're at the top of our list. It's a list of one. If you don't do this, we're not going to make this film, but no pressure. Hope you enjoy it!'"

Thankfully, Goldstein was on Lopex's radar already. "I was a fan of his. People know that I'm obsessed with 'Ted Lasso," Lopez said, even mentioning that she loved Goldstein's on-screen romance with Juno Temple's Keeley Jones on the series. "When he sent the script, I was just like, 'They wrote this for me?' It was great," she clarified.

Elsewhere, in a New York Times interview, Goldstein clarified something else: he never intended to let anyone else play Lopez's love interest. "I wouldn't have let anyone else do it," he admitted. "There was never anyone else." When Lopez joked, "Why write the movie?" Goldstein agreed: "Yeah, then why the f*** am I doing this?"

"Office Romance" is streaming on Netflix now.