Robert Downey Jr. is quite devoted to certain friends and costars. Gwyneth Paltrow is one of those friends – he constantly shows up for Gwyneth and he’s one of her biggest hype men. Well, RDJ was the one who presented Gwyneth with the 20th annual Sherry Lansing Leadership Award at the Women in Entertainment breakfast gala. His speech was partly a toast and partly a roast. You see, Gwyneth lives inside her own ass to the point where she has no idea who she’s working with within the Marvel films. This is a common enough story – Gwyneth had to be repeatedly “introduced” to Sebastian Stan, she had no idea that Samuel L. Jackson was in Endgame, and she completely forgot that she appeared in a Spider-Man movie. RDJ revealed that Gwyneth could not remember Tom Holland whatsoever.
It was a humorous and heartfelt reunion between Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. on Wednesday at The Hollywood Reporter’s 2025 Women in Entertainment breakfast gala, presented by Lifetime, at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Before Paltrow — who also graces the cover of THR‘s Women in Entertainment issue — took the stage to accept the 20th annual Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, Downey Jr. had some words of endearment as well as some playful digs at his former co-star and onscreen love interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Paltrow played Pepper Potts, opposite Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, across several films.
Downey Jr. didn’t waste any time before teasing her for being “impossibly intelligent, yet forever confused by the basic tenets of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its inhabitants” — as she has frequently gone viral for forgetting key Marvel moments and even which of the superhero films she’s been in.
“’Who’s that?’” The Sympathizer actor said Paltrow once asked, to which he jokingly responded, “‘That’s Spider-Man. He said his name was Peter. His character’s name is Peter. He’s Tom Holland. You’ve done four movies with him.’”
People can make excuses for her, and the MCU is so crazy, I don’t blame her for forgetting that she has a small role in certain movies. But to consistently blank on so many of her costars is rude as hell, not to mention chronically self-absorbed. I’ll say this too – if she forgets Tom Holland and Sebastian Stan to this degree, how do you think she treats below-the-line workers?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Getty.
