If Anyone Can Get Gwyneth Paltrow Back Into Acting, It’s Robert Downey Jr.

Ryan Lattanzio
·2 min read

Just when she thought she was out, someone could pull her back in…maybe. Gwyneth Paltrow revealed during a recent Entertainment Tonight interview (via Entertainment Weekly) that, while she’s not keen on returning to screens any time soon, there’s one A-lister who could convince the Goop CEO and Oscar winner to act again: her pal Robert Downey Jr.

“It would be very hard for me to do any acting right at the moment, just because of my job,” said Paltrow, who’s plenty busy launching a more accessible fleet of her A-class Goop products at Target and Amazon. “But, I guess Robert Downey Jr. could probably always get me back.”

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She added, laughing, “You know, to some degree.”

Paltrow has already said she’s long done with Marvel and playing “Iron Man” favorite Pepper Potts, revealing on the “Goop Podcast” when asked by Scarlett Johansson if she was finished with the franchise, “I think so. I mean, I didn’t die, so they can always ask me.”

Paltrow’s friendship with Downey predated the “Iron Man” films that started in 2008, and Downey was a key influence in bringing Paltrow aboard the $585 million global grosser that defined Phase One of the MCU and Marvel Studios’ striking out on its own with feature films. Downey is a Best Supporting Actor Oscar contender this year for “Oppenheimer,” his first major screen role after Tony Stark’s death in “Avengers: Endgame” (other than 2020’s “Dolittle,” already forgotten and labeled a “wound of squandered opportunity” by the star).

Paltrow hasn’t appeared onscreen since the second season of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series “The Politician” in 2020, though you can hear her voice in the Harvey Weinstein drama “She Said” (the actress was instrumental in bringing his crimes to the public light) and as a smart device assistant in “American Horror Stories.”

In 2022, Paltrow said, “I really don’t miss [acting] at all,” telling the “Today” show, “I think I’m so lucky that I got to do it, and I still, I’m sure I still will, at some point.” She added at the time, “The team is always trying to get me to do a movie, but I really love what I do. And I love how immediate it is, and how, you know, we’re able to create product out of thin air that we believe in so much.” Paltrow also said, “I don’t daydream about the movie business at all, but … I did promise my mother [Blythe Danner] that at some point before I die, told her that I would go and do a play. So I’m going to deliver on that promise at some point.”

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