Gwyneth Paltrow excited to find out Samuel L. Jackson was also in all those Marvel movies she did
Aux Features Film
There’s something a touch refreshing about how little of a shit Gwyneth Paltrow gives about her career as a Marvel heroine; she recently expressed genuine shock, for instance, that she’d been in the first new Spider-Man movie, Homecoming, and she’s generally given off the vibe of a person who’s never seen any of these fucking things, and probably never will. (While also, paradoxically, continuing to give interesting, committed performances whenever Pepper Potts actually shows up on the screen, mostly powered by her excellent back-and-forth with usual scene partner Robert Downey Jr.)
Plus, it leads to moments of genuine discovery and excitement—like when Paltrow found out that her old Hard Eight co-star Samuel L. Jackson was also in all these little superhero pictures she’s been doing. Said revelation apparently came to Paltrow fully 10 years into her Marvel career, when the whole MCU cast got together to take a photo, and the actress questioned why the heck Jackson was there.
This is per MCU head Kevin Feige, who gave a wide-ranging interview to Empire this week about the franchise’s ins-and-outs. (Including some interesting news about Captain America’s skull, and the fact that Tom Holland actually gets a little sad when the whole world makes fun of him for his spoiler-revealing tendencies.) Referencing the 10-year-anniversary “Class Photo” shoot—which, unsurprising given all the schedules involved, was taken quite some time ago, at the same time that the Avengers: Endgame funeral scene was shot—Feige noted that there was a lot of confusion happening that day. Part of that was natural, given that some of the performers—including Ant Man And The Wasp’s Michelle Pfeiffer—had yet to actually film their MCU roles yet. The rest, though, was pure Paltrow, with the actress seeming to genuinely not know that she’d been in three movies (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Avengers) with Jackson’s Nick Fury (with another two, Infinity War and Endgame, on the way.)
To be fair, Paltrow’s Pepper never shares a scene with Jackson’s Fury—although a quick search does reveal that she and Jackson were both on stage for the Iron Man 2 premiere. (Presumably, she just assumed he was someone’s plus-one.) Really, though, the only way she’d know he was in any of these things was to watch one of them, or see a commercial, or an action figure, or, really, any single piece of marketing related to a series of films that has become one of the dominant cultural forces of the last decade of global entertainment—and who the fuck’s got time for that?
127 Comments
Is it possible that Gwyneth Paltrow is an idiot?She’s a spectacular actress when she wants to be, but this level of obliviousness feels like it goes beyond just not giving a shit, and it is possible to be talented without being smart.
I feel like when we read this kind of crazy diva shit from movie starlets from the 60s we eat it up. So idk, I’ll eat her goop shit sandwich and smile at her clueless antics.
:: Sharon Tate trips over a suitcase, flashes her vagina ::
Basic Instinct 3?
Sharon TATE
Am I the only one who thinks these articles picking on Paltrow are getting a little sexist?She didn’t film with these people?Marvel notoriously films scenes and doesn’t tell actors what film it’s going to appear in.She did the job, gave a good performance, and went home. She didn’t watch the movies. And? Is that really a story? Is it enough of a story to make fun of her for it every time it comes up?
I don’t know if it’s sexist, but there’s certainly better things to make fun of her for, like everything Goop-related.
Maybe it’s just making fun of Paltrow for being Paltrow which maybe better than sexism but I don’t really find much better.But like, we have had articles like with Cobie Smulders talking about how her performance was based on one thing only to find out something completely different when Far From Home came outThat’s Marvel working conditions.Paltrow might be oblivious, naive, or have really bad memory. I don’t see the point in a pile on.
I would expect a pile-on no matter which cast member was involved. Similar to the tons of articles making fun of Tom Holland for his spoilers.
We can still talk shit about her cookbook though, right?
Won’t someone think of the wealthy children of privilege?
I think Paltrow is a whacko when it comes to GOOP and things related, but I can’t fault her here. From articles, interviews, podcasts, etc., I have learned that filming the MCU movies is like a jigsaw puzzle, and if you are an actor, you are just a piece and may not be sure what puzzle you’re part of.
People don’t get entire scripts. Some actors get only their lines. Some come in and act against tennis balls and green screens, for the rest to be filled in later. If you are doing this here and there over years, with other work in between, I think it’s hardly surprising she might not remember who plays what part.As for not seeing the movie, she is not the first actor I’ve heard of who doesn’t watch their own stuff. Johnny Depp comes to mind and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hold that against him (plenty of other stuff for that).
Paltrow deserves some push back on a lot of things, but not this.
Oh you mean stuff like the vagina eggs?
Who made fun of her? It’s funny and given the assload of junkets, premieres, and a decade of MCU buzz: where has she been?
In the next phase of Marvel movies, Pepper Potts turns heel, becoming the Big Bad, after a website repeatedly makes fun of her for being in movies with people she didn’t meet because they weren’t on set at the same time and also she apparently doesn’t watch those movies.In the end, it turns out that Kinja-era AV Club was the real monster the whole time. It’s America’s Ass but, like, in a bad way.
Nazi Germany’s ass!
Well, thanks a lot, now you’ve got me wondering if Red Skull’s arse is all crimson and skeletal like his face.
Of course not. His name is Red Skull, not Red Skull and Bum.
I think it’s charming. GP is a maniac and should be shat upon for her anti-vaccine stance, but it’s great that she doesn’t give a fuck about these trashy movies she’s in.
Not sure it’s sexist, but it’s certainly overdone. It is quite common that actors don’t watch their own projects after completion, and you’re right, these movies are shot so ridiculously that I don’t blame Paltrow at all for not knowing half the people that are in these films.
I think it’s absolutely fascinating that when faced with someone making fun of Gwyneth Paltrow, you choose to believe it’s for that single, specific characteristic out of all the possibilities. Someone making jokes about a person? Is that person a woman? Ah, that must be why. It’s a bizarre leap of logic, especially in this case, where the individual in question is so broadly disliked, but you ran with it. Fascinating.
I mean, she’s met Sebastian Stan like three times and still doesn’t know who he is.
I mean, I feel like I could meet Sebastian Stan and not know who he is either unless he was actually in his Bucky outfit/haircut.
Yeah I definitely couldn’t pick him out of a lineup without a metal arm.
I’ve gone back and forth on this, and came to the conclusion that it’s more making fun of an ultimate child of privilege’s inability to give the slightest of fucks. YMMV.
perfectly put. I don’t even think the poking fun of Gwyneth is mean spirited, I’m sure she gets poked at by her friends who didn’t come from similar backgrounds for her obliviousness.
I hadn’t considered that, but of course she has lots of super-successful friends who weren’t raised obscenely wealthy, and who probably flick her shit about it all the time.
Marvel notoriously films scenes and doesn’t tell actors what film it’s going to appear in
Don’t worry. If a man acted this oblivious and completely up his own ass about this, I’d think they were an idiot, too.
Not sure about the posts, but the comment section definitely trends sexist.
It’s sexist to expect her to do more on a job than just cash her check and fly to Paris to hang with Jay and Bey or whatever? Honestly, she’s exactly the reason I hate the Marvel habit of casting “prestige” actresses in these roles. I get the movies aren’t everybody’s thing. I get some people have no interest in or respect for comic book movies or the people that enjoy them and that’s fine. But if you’re going to actually make money off the thing, it’d be nice if you could at least pretend interest. The fact that she doesn’t even seem to know any of the people in the movies or anything about them isn’t amusing, or refreshing, it’s insulting.
Disagree. She’s paid to act in them (and, I guess, do some of the promotion), and, as even this article points out, she does a pretty damned fine job. I really like her Pepper, and the fact that she does such a good job in the films while actually not caring all that much about them, I’d argue, shows that she is putting in the effort.
It’s her job and she does it well. She doesn’t owe you or anyone else anything.
That’s what bothers me about her involvement in the MCU – she fell into it. She clearly got hired for Iron Man because they needed a name actor to pair up with RDJ because RDJ’s name and reputation was in the toilet at the time. Not saying she didn’t deliver in that movie or in several of her appearances along the way, because I think she played the role just fine. I just wish it was somebody else because her ever-present Urkel-esque sense of ‘Did I do that?’ bugs the shit out of me.
Let’s all stand up for a snake oil salesperson because she’s a woman. Come on!
I’m curious why you think “a touch refreshing”, “continuing to give interesting, committed performances” and “mostly powered by her excellent back-and-forth” are either “sexist” OR “picking on”. Due to your inability to understand a light-hearted FOUR-PARAGRAPH story, I’m thinking you shouldn’t probably be the go-to when it comes to either topic.
Yeah, I thought the article was actually really positive about something that’s increasingly striking me as a very intentional affectation. I don’t actually believe Paltrow is this out of touch with her work, but I do believe she’d like to be seen as someone who’s just kind of floating through life experiencing things and not getting too entangled with anything.
She also apparently never bothered to watch one of these movies she was in. Which is quite an achievement given how she probably was at all the premieres…
Not sure where rhe sexist part comes in..are you suggesting women are stupid..sounds like what you yourself are implying
Yeahhh, That was about as good natured as AV Club can be. It’s a pretty gentle ribbing.
You are not the only one. It’s especially problematic for Kevin Feige to throw her under the bus.
Usage of this newer, sort of Campus Left sense of “problematic” (as opposed to the older ‘posing or causing or related to a problem,’ or something like that) continues to confuse me — I fnd it vague. Do you mean that Feige is being a bit of a dick when he throws her under the bus, or are you suggesting he’s a misogynist, or some such?
I didn’t think it was making fun of her, I thought it was (by A.V. Club standards) a minimally snark-ish article about her being a professional actress. As for sexist, well, she just rocks those shorts in the header image. And my pants.
If she was a male actor it would still be funny if they were clueless about the actors in their movies. Personally if I got given absurd checks for little to no actual acting, I’d probably do a quick Google of what movie I just made and who else was in it. Did Paltrow honestly never see a movie at the premiere? She’s had literally a decade to know Samuel L Jackson is in these movies.
Some actors go out of their way not to watch their own movies. Maybe she’s one of them?
To be fair, in many of the movies Jackson is just part of a post-credits scene, which she may not have seen even if she did see the movie.
What does sexism have to do with any of this? I really don’t see why you’d consider her gender to be a factor, plus this article never implied it either. Sounds like to me you’re projecting your own sexist thoughts about her gender onto anything she does. You’re defending Paltrow from sexism that came from your own head to begin with.
Thank you for coming to Paltrow’s aid. She really needs to be defended from the sexist writers at The A.V. Club making fun of her. You know what? Buying one of her $200 “river stones” will cheer her up and also help unlock your 3rd eye.
It’s never some across that way to me. I’m a woman. I’m also not a fan of hers at all since she’s a massively pretentious snake oil salesman.
Its not sexist, her being an idiot, a snake oil salesman (OOPS WAS THAT MISGENDERING?) and just generally unaware of the world she lives and works in just proves how ignorant she is
“Am I the only one who thinks these articles picking on Paltrow are getting a little sexist?”Maybe, yes. Pretty sure the same article would be written about a dude — especially if he also sold mystical vagina rocks.
In Gwyneth Paltrow’s defense, it’s hard to concentrate when you’re carrying a rock in your bee-stung cooter.
And who knows, maybe steaming your vagina causes memory loss.
Can confirm.Full disclosure, I have neither a vagina, nor the desire to put it in the steamer, but I have played one on TV. A steamer that is; playing a vagina is out of my pay grade.
Yep, it was sexism. Are you kidding?
Do the bee stings help? Like, it swells closed and that way the rock doesn’t fall out?
It’s a lot for effective than the course of diamond-studded leeches she kept recommending.
But she’s fully aware of every film containing vaginal steam treatments. So, unless Jackson stars in Snake Oil on a Plane, his work will likely remain off her radar.
“I want that motherfucking steam on my motherfucking vagina!”
Pepper Potts outtake
Y’all may think these superhero franchise flicks are the most important cultural moment in history but to the actors and crew they’re just another day’s work. I recall Sir Alec Guiness would cringe visible every time ‘Star Wars’ was mentioned. So Paltrow wasn’t aware that former coworker Jackson was ‘superhero #57′ in a film franchise that she had once played a secretary in.
Uh, more like CEO than secretary. And yeah, Guiness once agreed to sign an autograph for a kid, on the condition that he agree to never watch Star Wars again.
Yeah, i’ve heard that story before, but honestly that’s kind of douchey.Alec was a fucking asshole for that one.
HE doesn’t have to like those movies. HE doesn’t have to like that he was in it. Fine.But telling an excited little Star Wars fan kid who the film clearly meant a lot to, to not to watch a movie he loves anymore just because YOU didn’t like being in it? Sorry, but fuck that. That’s more than just a simple “haha what a funny story” anecdote, that’s just being a self-righteous fucking asshole who doesn’t give one shit about what your film, like it or not, has on the impact of the people who see it. That’s not a funny little story to be shared around like “haha that’s cute”. That’s fucking horrible, and I don’t know how Guiness could sleep that night.
yeah, I know. I hate my shitty job too but I wouldn’t have it long if I was out in public being an asshole about it.
I’m an asshole about my job out in public all the time. No one at my job knows or cares.
Same here. I’m also surrounded by assholes in my line of work, but that’s what I get for finding employment on Spaceball One. Don’t give me that look, their three-ring circus needed a bearded lady, and the popularity of three-ring circuses is waning on Planet Druidia!
Sorry, how is she being an asshole? She’s not saying the movies are shitty or that the other people in them are bad actors or bad people – she just doesn’t watch them. That seems a little odd, but I don’t know, I don’t go back and read my old technical manuals – I’ve heard lots of actors say they don’t watch the movies they are in.
No one’s expecting Paltrow to memorize the intricate details of the MCU, but it is a little weird to not even know which movies you’ve appeared in.
It strikes me that if an athlete signed with a team and didn’t know the roster of who else was on that team, people would reasonably pillory him or her as checked out and not fully invested in their performance. I can kinda see how horrific sexual predators manage to keep finding work in Hollywood, though, if that level of “I just show up and get paid, who cares what it’s for or who’s involved” is typical.
I don’t think it is typical, exactly; part of it is that actors never work on one thing for very long. A couple of months and you’re basically done with the movie, aside from pickups several months later and then the press tour. Meanwhile you spend months and months doing other things and don’t see any of those people. Even if you worked hard on movie A, it’s over, and now you’re shooting movie B.I don’t think Paltrow needs to be pilloried, and her performances in the MCU are uniformly excellent. It’s just kind of amusing that she not only doesn’t know who else is in the movies she’s in (indicating that she’s never actually watched any of these movies… which is not that unusual, given that there are many actors who routinely don’t watch their own movies, for whatever reason), she doesn’t even seem to know which movies she’s in. Sure, there are cases where maybe on consecutive days she was filming scenes for two different Marvel movies, and wasn’t told which was which… but even for the sake of her own career, wouldn’t she want to keep track of which movies she was in?It’s less like not knowing who your teammates are and more like not knowing which team you’re on.
Ive only seen the first Iron Man and even I know that SLJ is in these movies. She doesn’t even see any of the movies she’s in? Not even with her kids who are maybe just the right age to think it’s cool that their mom is in a superhero movie? I guess Uber rich kids who probably go to some kind of crystal palace Waldorf school don’t care about normal movies.
recall Sir Alec Guiness would cringe visible every time ‘Star Wars’ was mentioned.Yeah, didn’t Star Wars make him very rich. due to Alec’s canny merch deal because he sensed it would be a smash? Yeah, poor Alec’s .. sense of his own integrity. He made a huge fortune off Star Wars. Oh boo hoo. Where shall we send flowers and condolences?
I always got a bit of a “protesting too much” impression from Guinness about Star Wars. He wanted the fat stacks but also to be seen as too good for the material. I’m sure it was tiresome being so well-known for a role he didn’t really think was great, but…
I find it refreshing that a star in the superhero genre doesn’t even bother to pretend that these stupid movies mean anything to her except a paycheck.
It would be bit of professional courtesy, though to actually bother watching the movies once that you get paid for. Or at least the trailers…
Different situation, I know, but if I call on one of my customers and they want to ask me about one of my company’s new products and I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about, then I look like an unprofessional schmuck. It’s not just my job to show up. It’s my job to know what’s going on in regard to my company, my company’s products, & my role in the company. This is pretty much employment-101.
she doesn’t watch herself in her own films I think
Cute. You sound like a hipster desperately in need of going to fuck yourself.
Just wait until she finds out Fury isn’t Laurence Fishburne.
“I thought Nick Fury was Laurence Fishburne???”“Actually, Laurence Fishburne was in a marvel movie. He was in Ant Man and Wasp”“Whu…why???”“Fishburne was also in two DC universe movies”*Paltrow’s head explodes*
I picture Gwynnie going peak-Becky with: Who’s that Black guy over there? Is someone calling the police?!And Samuel going,”Bitch! We’ve been in four movies together! You drunkenly put your hand on my crotch at Jay-Z’s last party???”
Paltrow: “No, I drunkenly put my hand on Don Cheadle’s crotch at that party.”Cheadle: “…I wasn’t at Jay-Z’s last party.”
It’s kinda starting to feel like they’re trying to push this as something similar to “Tom Holland can’t be trusted with spoilers!” narrative, as something fans find funny.Even after Holland admitted in the FFH interviews that those were mostly promotional bits, except that one time he legit didn’t know he was gonna step on stage before the movie was played.
To be fair, Paltrow’s Pepper never shares a scene with Jackson’s FuryUhhh…
It could not possibly be more obvious that not all of these people were together at the same time.
What’s your point?Did Hughes not claim they “never share[d] a scene”? Is this not irrefutable evidence that they did, in fact, share a scene?
While you are technically correct (the best kind of correct), the point of the “shared a scene” line was to indicate that they had never actually been on set together, thus explaining why Paltrow might not have realized SLJ wasn’t in the same movie. (Of course, it doesn’t explain why Paltrow has never apparently watched any of these movies, or even somehow learned that SLJ was in like 8 of them)
You’d think she’d have watched them at the premiere screenings that she attended.
She might not. Some stars walk the red carpet and then slip out the back and go do something else because they hate watching themselves.
She has two swap vagina crystals every ninety minutes. Sitting through a whole Marvel film at a premiere is not an option.
Referencing the 10-year-anniversary “Class Photo” shoot—which, unsurprising given all the schedules involved, was taken quite some time ago, at the same time that the Avengers: Endgame funeral scene was shot I think he meant, no scenes together aside from the one in question that was mentioned in the article as actually being shot the day that this whole situation arose.
If that’s what he meant, that’s what he should have written.
Sorry, that was my mistake. Instead of being snotty and telling you that you anyone with a decent amount of reading comprehension would know that what was written explicitly indicates that Paltrow didn’t share any pre-Infinity War/Endgame scenes with Jackson, I decided to be polite and let you off the hook for apparently not being able to read very well. Allow me to be clear: This article is sourcing Kevin Feige, who said that on this particular day, when a scene was shot with practically every major player from the MCU, Paltrow saw Jackson for apparently the first time on set, and it was reported that she was surprised. This is because, apparently up until this point, the two had never shared any scenes in the MCU. In other words: “Paltrow’s Pepper never shares a scene with Jackson’s Fury [Excepting this funeral scene, which is the reason you clicked on this article]”
So, because neither of us is so invested in winning a point that we would run a semantic argument about whether or not an article talking about what happened when this particular scene was filmed would somehow forget about this particular scene being filmed, when the alternative explanation is much simpler and much less excruciatingly obnoxious, I’m sure we can just agree that what Hughes said is perfectly fine.
Actually, they were all there at the same time.https://movieweb.com/avengers-endgame-funeral-scene-most-expensive/Yes, I was just as stunned as lots of other people to learn this as well.
Well, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. (Although it’s still like some kind of CGI anti-illusion…but facts is facts.)
The background may have been CGI’d in later, and there’s an anamorphic quality to the camera lens which means people in the far left and right of the frame look a little warped, but by all accounts they were indeed all there together.
actually they were and then they took the picture mentioned in the article
As mentioned, they did said photo shoot when they came in to film that scene.
She never speaks to Nick Fury. She never appears in the same shot with Fury. She should know he’s in the movies that pay her money, but a quick obviously CGI sequence doesn’t count as sharing a scene.
Maybe I’m stupid, but I’ve never figured out who that young guy is standing behind Wanda and Bucky at 1:34 in that clip.
I currently can’t watch the clip to confirm, but I am guessing you’re talking about the man who, as a boy, helped Tony Stark fix and charge up the suit in Iron Man 3. I can’t remember the character’s name.I didn’t know who he was either and it was super jarring when I first saw the scene, but after looking it up I now think his inclusion was a nice bit of detail.
The Kid from Iron Man 3.
Wow, I wonder how the casual viewer was supposed to know that.
Why would the casual viewer care?
I cared enough to ask. It’s not like I’ve brooded about it, but when I look at that scene it bugs me that there’s some random guy amongst all the characters I know.
That’s the character Harley Keener — the kid in Iron Man 3.
That was the scene that they were filming when Paltrow had this revelation. As it clearly says above.
“Referencing the 10-year-anniversary “Class Photo” shoot—which, unsurprising given all the schedules involved, was taken quite some time ago, at the same time that the Avengers: Endgame funeral scene was shot—”So they shot the photo before they all got dressed to shoot the scene, the first time they were in the same place at the same time in universe.
I would find all of this utterly charming if not for the fact that Paltrow undoubtedly used all that extra time to concoct newer and increasingly dangerous vaginal inserts.
Right, and we, as guys, feel left out. I want to spend my rich fuck monies on jade butt eggs and crystal peehole spikes or whatever. Was that the point at which we were collectively arriving?
Buy an estim, it will change your life.
I misread that as “vaginal insects” at first and thought nothing was strange about it.
That’s a terrible thing to call Chris Martin.
No, it isn’t. That guy has the personality of a scoop of vanilla ice cream on a bed of white rice.
On a loaf of good, hearty white bread for white, white people!
It’s so refreshing that a woman who sells earth-centric vaginal stone eggs doesnt know what movie she is appearing in. What planet does she fucking live on? Do her handlers just push her around on a cart with valium feeding down into a tube for her?
Hard Eight is a crackerjack little film and Paltrow’s performance is excellent – one of her best early roles.
Of all of Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies…that was the one with Gwyneth Paltrow in it.
You know, this weirdly improves my opinion of Gwyneth Paltrow.
It shouldn’t.
Comic book movies peaked with 1997’s Spawn and it’s only been downhill from there.
Who is refreshed by the fact that someone is paid millions of dollars to do something where they can be checked out to this level? It’s fucked.
I honestly find this to be hilarious. I feel like she’s one of those people that never knows what’s going on. Referencing the last article about her meeting Sebastian Stan for like the 3rd time. She reminds me of Dory not going to lie.
All this time she thought Nick Fury was played by Laurence Fishburne.
“Wait, wait, wait … I’m an actor?” – Gwyneth Paltrow, probably.
Was he entire time with Marvel behind a green screen?
I agree that this is nothing we should care about. But, on the other hand, don’t these actors actually go to see the World Premier of these films where they presumably sit and watch them? Like, from the banner image at the top of this article?