Gwyneth Paltrow Snubs Scarlett Johannson and Crew of Iron Man 2? Maybe, But I Doubt It

So Scarlett Johansson and Gwyneth Paltrow are not only fighting as Black Widow and Pepper Potts in Iron Man 2, but off the set, too?  GOOP is just jealous that ScarJo looks so hawt in that leather bodysuit and she’s stealing the spotlight from Gwyneth and her super-oiled legs.  Everybody says that Gwyneth is so snooty everywhere she goes and never talks to anyone and thinks she’s so much better than everyone else and someone needs to remind her that she’s totally not British even though she’s married to that guy from Coldplay and …. wait, what?  Who did I hear that from?  Well, it’s like everywhere on the internet and all the celebrity sites are reporting that she and ScarJo just can’t stand each other…

OK, after reviewing a lot of these articles, it seems that the genesis of Gwyneth-as-Gorgon is a single, anonymous “on-set” source, who has decided to give the goods to anyone who will listen.  This “source,” who for all we know is a lighting assistant who wanted Gwyneth to autograph 15 pictures while she was leaving the set in the rain after a 16-hour day, said, “Gwyneth is extremely cool at work. She’s just a step above professional, too snobby … Gwyneth is not friendly to anyone, and tends to make people feel awkward and uncomfortable. She wasn’t outright rude to Scarlett, she just didn’t ever speak to her. Gwyneth went out of her way to avoid Scarlett, and they had zero contact, at Gwyneth’s choosing.”

Catch that?  She was never rude to Scarlett, she just didn’t speak to her.  Sounds like literally millions of workplace relationships.  And how did Paltrow make people feel “awkward and uncomfortable”?  Says the Fox411 article, “The source says that she also put undue pressure on the hair and makeup staff and other members of the crew. ‘Gwyneth would be very put out if hair and makeup were running behind or things were not on schedule. Usually, nothing was drastically late, but Gwyneth can instantly say something that lets everyone know she is put out,’ the source explains.”

So Paltrow puts “undue pressure” on some of the crew because they’re behind schedule, which puts her behind schedule on a movie that’s probably going to cost more than $150 million (the first Iron Man had a $140 million production budget).  I might feel “put out”, too, if I woke up when it was still dark and had to sit in a make-up chair before getting into costume, looking at a long-ass day of filming, and things are already running behind.  Now, maybe it wasn’t the crew’s fault, and perhaps Paltrow could be more understanding if that were the case, but I hardly think expecting punctuality and professionalism on a multi-million dollar movie set is “undue pressure.”  Given that Iron Man brought in $585 million worldwide, director Jon Favreau (and not just Paltrow) probably wants to make his release date, too.

If Gwyneth is the Queen of Mean, her husband and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is super-cool and fun to be around!  Says the insider, “much of the crew didn’t mind hanging out with her husband, Chris, but if Gwyneth ever came around, they scattered! Chris is so chill and relaxed and she is just the opposite. Chris has been a crew favorite since the filming of the first movie.”  Even with hundreds of concerts under his belt, it probably is fun for Martin to hang out on the set of Iron Man 2.  But he’s not in the movie, and his wife is, which means she has to work, even if he’s there to watch.  She probably doesn’t have time to mill around and tell the story about that trip to Barcelona when she ate that whole bowl of paella and got bombed on sangria and Estrella Galicia (she’ll never mix those again!), wandered down Las Ramblas, and threw up in a dumpster outside of that shitty tapas bar.  No, she probably has the same daily responsibilities, while her husband can be the charming off-the-clock raconteur.  I wonder what Gwyneth would be like backstage at a Coldplay concert 15 minutes before Chris goes on?

Gwyneth Paltrow might be the meanest, nastiest person to work with in show business.  She also might be the sweetest and most caring.  The truth almost certainly lies somewhere in between.  But all it takes is one “source” willing to stir the pot to make headlines, and all of the sudden dozens of media outlets paint Paltrow as a stuck-up, cold-hearted, jealous bitch.  After stoking the fires in another article with the same flimsy evidence, gossip site Celebitchy finally gets around to admitting that maybe this whole thing has been ginned up to generate some buzz: “[T]o be fair … I think part of this is the media’s desire to have a catfight.”  The “truth” will probably come out after the movie does, but on that point alone I think Celebitchy is right.