Interviewing Gwyneth Paltrow: On Filming Iron Man 3 #IronMan3Event

All photos courtesy of Dear Crissy

If I know anything about Gwyneth Paltrow it’s that she is shockingly beautiful, statuesque, fun-loving, sweet, generous, passionate, and probably could have talked to us all night!  What was supposed to be a brief q&a session, turned into what felt like a casual conversation you’d have with your best friend!  In fact, I  just finished listening to my audio recording of our group interview and just love her more and more as a mom, an author, a woman, and an actress!

24 bloggers and I sat down to chat with Gwyneth Paltrow just before the Hollywood premiere of Iron Man 3 last week.  With her was her publicist and even her best friend since childhood.  Her beaming smile was warm and inviting and it’s no wonder that she was bestowed the honor of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful woman, she talked a little about that:

GP : Steven has been my publicist since I was nineteen years old, and he sent me the email and I was like this is a typo,  I reread it three times, and then I got this really weird feeling that my school bully had somehow was playing a trick on me. I swear, I had to talk about with my shrink. I went through this whole weird thing,  he {said} yes it’s true. And I was beyond surprised, flattered, and I still kinda can’t believe it. It’s really cool.

When you see Iron Man 3 this weekend, you’ll notice Pepper Potts in THE SUIT!  It’s one of those moments in a film that empowers women and I may have been the ones who yelled out and cheered!

GP :  I love putting on the suit. It was really weird, I’ve never done anything like that in my whole career, and my son was on set, and so I’ll never forget it.  I walk out onto the set, and I was fully dressed in the suit and his face, because he’s in the last probably year and a half  watched the first Iron Man and Avengers and everything, I’ll never forget his face. He was in shock and awe. It was so cool.  By the way, I now have a Lego in the set- there’s a Pepper, so I am a goddess. So fun.

Can you imagine the mommy points she scored with her son?  I can’t wait to grab a LEGO set for my daughter that has Pepper in the Iron Man suit!  I love how that meant so much to her as an actress and especially as a mother!

Gwyneth had never taken on such a powerful, strong role before, she talked a little about how the turn about came in Pepper’s character:

GP : I loved it so much. You know, come on guys, all these boys are flying around doing all this fun stuff and I loved how patient and kind and sweet Pepper is.  But, when I read this script, I was like oh yeah. She’s in the suit and flying around, and I loved doing the stunts. As I said, I really had never done anything like that before.It was really fun. I felt like I should’ve been doing this the whole {time}, why am I doing all these period films,  it’s so boring! {laughs}

Some great stories are the behind the scenes events that go on, on a set and Gwyneth again beamed as she told us a story about having her kids with her during filming.

GP : I’m so bad at remembering the funny stories. I mean, the things that I remember from set are my kids learning  like how to drive a golf cart! {The set is} so big and you drive a golf cart from one thing to another, you’re like okay  you can drive the golf cart.  Then all of a sudden, they just started taking off in golf carts. So, this is illegal and this is not okay.  Or their Nerf gun fights, {it was} a fun experience for the family and they love Robert. They, they had no idea that Robert was famous until probably a year ago. They just love him so much and he creates a fun environment, and it was nice. It was a really nice shoot, you know, when you work with someone over and over again that you really love and, like, that environment is so familial and the kids feel- everybody feels it, and it was- it, it really was so great.

Soon you’ll also be reading about my interview with Iron Man 3’s newest (and youngest) actor Ty Simpkins.  Ty hadn’t seen the movie before last week’s premiere.  Curious if Gwyneth had seen a screening yet she told us:

GP : I saw it. Marvel/Disney, after the press in London, rented a little screening room and I brought my son and my daughter and seventeen of their friends, it was so awesome. We watched it in 3D and I was really surprised. I mean, I thought the movie was actually a really a good movie.  I normally don’t watch this kind of movie and I thought it was so good. I thought there were so many really interesting metaphors in it. The media sort of being proponents of fear and how that affects the culture, what’s real, what’s a threat.  I loved Robert, Tony Stark, being really stripped back and raw and you know, having to kind of MacGyver his way back to strength. I just loved the relationship with Pepper and Tony.  I thought it was really cool to see her wanting to get her needs met, and I just thought it worked. Then of course, all the action stuff is so fun, but I also think that the bones of it were actually really good.

I old now to start being in action movies, [LAUGHS]. I would like to {be in more}. Everybody’s sort of been very sweet about Pepper in this movie, like all the journalists who came in. They were like, oh my God, you have to have your own movie, because in the comics, Pepper gets her own suit, and she becomes a character called Rescue. We need a Rescue movie and…I’d better hit the gym.

For a few minutes I paused and thought, this is unreal!  Ellen DeGeneres gets interviews with celebrities like this and here we are 24 blogging women from all over the US and we’re in a near half-hour casual conversation with Gwyneth Paltrow!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  In just about an hour and a half she was to be on the Red Carpet, but she wasn’t rushed, she wasn’t bothered to be hanging out with us, answering all our questions, she is so awesome!

After hearing that silver and white were her favorite colors and they’d don the super hero suit of her personal choice, we got down to the question of the day, what was it really like working with Robert Downey Jr.?

GP:  It’s so fun. I mean, he’s really the most spontaneous, mad genius, {always} improvising. {He keeps you} on your toes. It’s really interesting to see how all these different actors work and what their process is.  Jeff Bridges on the first movie, he had binders of research and everything was underlined and highlighted, and there were graphs.  And then Robert would come in and read the scene and rip it up, and be like, nope we’re not doing it.  He’s like, this is bull, let’s make it up- and poor Jeff Bridges would be dying, he had memorized everything!

As the woman, of course, you’re just like let’s keep everyone happy. [LAUGHS] There’s a happy medium to be found here, guys. You know on this movie, he was at least not throwing away the scenes every day because the screenplay was really good.  You never know what’s gonna happen which I love.  Not Jeff Bridges, {he} does not love it, but..[LAUGHS]

I never even met {Ty Simpkins, who plays Harley}. But I loved in the movie how they do that relationship and that is exactly what Robert is like.

If this interview doesn’t tease you enough to pre-order those movie tickets for this weekend, I don’t know what will!  I have EVEN MORE content with Gwyneth Paltrow coming up.  We talk to her about her new cookbook and I’m hoping to get in the kitchen with one of her recipes this weekend!

So what do you think, she’s amazing isn’t she?

Our interview was part of our press trip hosted by Marvel/Disney.  All opinions are always my own.