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.
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- Gwyneth Paltrow – Robert Downey Jr Iron Man 3 Premiere – Paris,Image: 542871263, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lionel Urman/Avalon
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- 2025 Governors Awards at the Ray Dolby Ballroom on November 16, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA,Image: 1052964852, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Gwyneth Paltrow, Credit line: Nicky Nelson/Wenn/Avalon
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- Gwyneth Paltrow at the 16th Governors Awards in the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, November 16, 2025.,Image: 1053001208, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: ©A.M.P.A.S. All rights reserved., Model Release: no, Credit line: /AMPAS/Avalon
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- Gwyneth Paltrow at the 16th Governors Awards in the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, November 16, 2025.,Image: 1053001215, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: ©A.M.P.A.S. All rights reserved., Model Release: no, Credit line: /AMPAS/Avalon
I would never, ever forget meeting Sebastian Stan!! Or Tom Hollander either. Gwyneth, yeah I’d forget.
Oops, Tom Holland, not Tom Hollander.
I forgive her 100%. She’s older than me and I can confirm that once you get to a certain age, you just forget everything.
It might just be arrogance, but a lifetime of disordered eating & consuming snake oil cannot be good for brain health.
Yeah, I think she (and RDJ and other friends) think these stories are charming or at least harmless tales of her legendary self-absorption and arrogance, but…honestly, to repeatedly forget people you’ve not only been in the same movie with, but done scenes together with AND done promotional events with?
That’s actually pretty alarming and seems like a sign of a problem, not a cutesy “I’m above it all” personality quirk.
Yeah forgetting someone she did 4 films with and promotional work…she might want to get checked out. It’s not charming, it’s worrisome, and she does have a long history of disordered eating.
Epitome of White Woman Entitlement, thy name is Gwyneth Paltrow.. I’m sure she’s utterly insufferable to be around unless she wants something from you.
Gwyneth has always lived inside her own bubble and rarely leaves it. Unlike most people, she can afford to.
This is how I read it as well.
They’re all probably dark haired 20-somethings all meshed into one, in her head.
Maybe it’s all her weird diets, fasting , enemas and colonics they have warped her brain.
So I understood her forgetting which Marvel movies she was in, because they do film them sometimes out of sequence and for end credit scenes. So she may not have actually been in the movie, or she filmed the scene for another movie while working on one where it was focused on her character. That I get. You don’t realize that the scene you filmed while working on an Avengers movie is going to be used at the end of a Thor movie, whatever.
Forgetting people that you are working on a scene with for several days? That you’ve seen at I presume wrap parties, on set in the studio lot, and have done press tours with? That’s an affectation, that she doesn’t pay attention to this lowly stuff. Which honestly at her age and with her career it’s kind of sad.
Exactly – there are plenty of Marvel actors who aren’t up on the lore or even what powers their own characters have or don’t have, and that’s fine with me.
What is NOT fine is being unprofessional and unprepared, which is what this is. Forgetting the names of your costars or treating them like they are lesser because your name is higher on the call sheet is just terrible behaviour. You just KNOW Gwyneth would be incensed if another actor forgot that she was in a movie with them!
I will say that RDJ is probably hamming it up here and choosing to lightly roast her with examples he knows will probably be good sports about it – both Tom Holland and Sebastian Stan are pros in the art of the Marvel press tour and are unlikely to take offense. But it isn’t a good look for GP.
Also also HOW would you ever forget Sebastian Stan???
Yeah, that tracks
She just has the smug, self-satisfied face that my hand itches to slap.
My hand wishes to help your hand with that slap.
How is anyone THAT self-absorbed? Tom Holland is one of the biggest stars on the planet right now and she’s done FOUR movies with him and yet she had to ask who he was. It’s not like they appeared in the same movies but were never together. They filmed actual scenes together. WTF?
And Sebastian Stan? I wouldn’t forget that gorgeous man if I had a traumatic brain injury, lol.
Gwenyth might have a memory problem. I remember Sebastian roasting her at that couture show but not because she’d been in any scenes with him but because she’d been introduced to him at least three times. That is when it gets weird. There was that video of Chris Pratt explaining who Sebastian was and which character he played to her, so it isn’t like she hadn’t been told but I guess it didn’t stick in her mind.
Same with Tom Holland. She definitely had scenes with him but still didn’t remember him on multiple occasions. Time for someone to be alarmed about GP’s memory or need for a scan/meds.
That is alarming, and I am wondering if she has cognitive decline, and she is supposedly so health oriented, why has she not checked on that. Why have her friends not intervened. That isn’t funny, or a funny anecdote’
Perhaps her fake science nonsense doesn’t help with congnitive decline.