Gwyneth Paltrow was on the Late Show with David Letterman last night and I have to give her credit for giving a fun interview that was interesting and light. I tend to vilify the woman for comments she made years ago disparaging Americans, but she came across as down to earth, friendly and kind. She told a self-deprecating story without it being an act, and you can also tell she genuinely loves her kids.
On having a boy and a girl who fight
Paltrow has Moses, 2, and Apple, who will be 4 in May.
“It’s a very good age difference. Boys and girls are very fundamentally different, aren’t they?
“They play so differently. She’s quiet and she’s imaginative and she’s very verbal. She likes to sit with her things and build houses and hotels for her dolls, and then my son will just come and thrash the hell out of everything she’s doing. And if he can inflict pain on her while he’s thrashing then even better. Then she gets furious and says that she’s antagonizing her… but he’s very sweet… we call him our ‘sensitive thug.’ It’s a line from a Jay-Z song and it fits him perfectly.
“She’s [Apple] finally starting to give it back to him, but in a very female under the radar way… I’m very proud.”
Dave: “The energy just must be great. It’s a combination of great and bedlam, but it’s a good kind of bedlam.”
“It’s the best. It just makes life worth living, you know.”
On not seeing Ironman because they wouldn’t give her a DVD
Dave: “Ironman, tremendous movie by the way. Have you seen it?”
“No, I haven’t seen it… they wouldn’t give me a DVD, because I am an Internet pirate.”
Dave: “Seems to me like you ought to have seen it though.”
“I know, and everyone seems to really like it. And I have no idea what I’m talking about.”
On breaking her knee on the set of Ironman, calls herself a “moron”
Dave joked about how director Jon Favreau was in a lot of scenes, and Gwyneth said it was great working with someone who was also an actor because he understood what they were doing.
Dave: “When you injured yourself, how did he [Favreau] handle that?”
“Well, I broke my knee, because I’m a moron and I always bash into things by accident. It’s true. I’ve broken my toes like 30 times. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
“Say there’s a coffee table that’s been there for 8 years and I know exactly where it is. One day I’ll kinda not know it’s there and break my toe.
“So in my usual stupidity I managed to bash my knee on something, and it really hurt, and I kept kind of exercising and running in the film, and it started to really expand.
“This one day I’m doing a scene where I’m running away from Iron Monger… I said to Jon ‘My knee is really really hurting I don’t know how many times I can do this’ and he was like ‘Oh my God these actresses with their… ‘ He was kind of rolling his eyes like ‘You’re fine.’
“I ended up going to the doctor and I had such a bad fracture I had to have surgery the next day, and so I felt very smug and he apologized” [laughs]
Gwyneth touches Dave’s knee and he makes silly noises
Dave asked Gwyneth what part of her knee she injured and she touched his knee to show him and he started making goofy noises. That part is 5:50 into the first video below. Gwyneth said she “fractured the tibial…” and that she had arthroscopic surgery and they put cement in there. She said it was “bone cement, not off a building site.”
As for how she’s recovered, she said her leg still doesn’t feel totally normal and that she has a weird nerve problem and her legs don’t feel the same. “If I get a leg wax, one side hurts a lot more than the other side,” she explained and was laughing with Dave about it.
Then Gwyneth talked about her role in Iron Man, in which she plays a personal assistant to Robert Downey Jr.’s character. She said she had a lot of fun with it and hopes they make a sequel.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised with her interview and have a much better opinion of her after having watched it.
Here’s part 1 of Gwyneth Paltrow on the Late Show on 4/28/08
And part 2:
Gwyneth Paltrow is shown outside The Late Show yesterday, thanks to WENN. She’s wearing wild shoes again.
Lately she has been looking like Heidi Klum in the face to me. She hasn’t always, just lately.
I agree, Michelle. The shape of her face has changed. And self-deprecating humor nearly always endears a person to me.
I *would* be surprised. Either she has been consistently quoted out of context for years, or she realized that she needed to do some damage control after all that crap she’s said.
UUHHMMMM,,,she’s an actress. Hello? She was just playing the part on gap toothed Dave’s show. Her people told her that is the part she needed to play that night. You can bet she got the feedback after her slam on Americans. Plus she ain’t nobody since she and Brad split..Just ask Manniston.
I think she’s doing some damage control. I think she’s come to realize that she’s come across as fridged and unlikable. I recall an interview ith Jon Stewart where i found her down right rude … i think maybe someone advised her or she figured it out her self that her image needs some help and she is lightening up a bit. Im sure she’s a nice person but she comes across so unlikeable. At least she’s doing something about it.
It just goes to show how very different reading one’s quote is from actually hearing them say it. I pictured her quotes coming across differently when I just read them above than they were when she actually said them in the video. I wonder how many celebs are just misunderstood? Good on CB for reporting the good and the bad. She doesn’t seem so bad.
“she ain’t nobody since she and Brad split”?
She was nobody (or at least his girlfriend) while she was with him, and went on to win an Oscar after they split. Why is Brad Pitt getting all the glory? He’s not a bad actor, but his best roles are the ones where he’s a supporting actor next to really good leading actors.
She is seriously selling this movie. She knows where her bread is buttered and most of the people this movie appeals to hates her pretentious ass.
If this movie fails, it’s art house/indie flicks for her forever and that doesn’t pay for a Madonna-like lifestyle.
GP won an Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love”. Another role that was impressive was her portrayal as Sylvia Plath in “Sylvia”. Gwyneth comes from a classy family, was educated at private school, and is admirably articulate. Sorry if that offends you!