Robert Downey Jr. Teases Gwyneth Paltrow Is Still Lost in the MCU

Robert Downey Jr. roasted Gwyneth Paltrow in the sweetest way possible, then handed her a trophy. Classic. At The Hollywood Reporter 2025 Women in Entertainment breakfast gala, he presented her with the 20th annual Sherry Lansing Leadership Award and turned the podium into a warm, slightly chaotic love letter to his Marvel partner-in-crime.

The setup: an affectionate roast

Downey kicked things off by framing Paltrow as a contradiction in the best way: brilliant, successful, and somehow still baffled by the Marvel Cinematic Universe she helped launch. If you have seen the running gag that Gwyneth occasionally blanks on MCU specifics, you know the vibe.

He even told a story about a day on set when she asked who a certain superhero was, and he had to give the full refresher: that would be Spider-Man, his name is Peter, the actor is Tom Holland, and yes, you have already done four movies with him. It was the kind of friendly needle only a longtime co-star can pull off. For anyone keeping score, Paltrow played Pepper Potts opposite Downey’s Tony Stark across multiple MCU films.

Then he turned on the firehose of praise

Once the jokes landed, the Oppenheimer star dialed into pure admiration. He reminded the room that Paltrow is an Oscar winner for 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, then called out the way she has balanced an A-list acting career with parenting and business-building. His point: while the rest of us were just trying to get through a setup on Iron Man, she was also building Goop between takes.

He also gave her credit for putting a certain phrase into the cultural bloodstream when she and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin split, saying their breakup introduced a lot of people to the idea of conscious uncoupling. And in case anyone was tempted to write off her public profile as divisive, Downey waved that off too, dismissing the whole 'polarizing public persona' label as something tossed around by, in his words, 'dingbats' when a powerful woman stays relevant and reinvents herself for decades.

'It is time to recognize ... Gwyneth fuggin' Paltrow.'

What she is up to next

Paltrow is back on the big screen in the 2025 sports comedy-drama Marty Supreme, playing Kay Stone opposite Timothee Chalamet as Marty Mauser. If Downey’s speech was the toast, that’s the next course.