Gwyneth Paltrow is taking a brief respite from hawking infrared hair dryers and vagina-scented candles to dabble in some ping pong wizardry. That is a bit of a twist, although not a huge one considering the actor's incredibly stacked resume. (Not to mention her 1999 Best Actress Oscar win for Shakespeare In Love, although she may or may not be using the statue as a doorstop as we speak.) According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paltrow has signed on to star opposite Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme, the upcoming film from A24 and director Josh Safdie.
While the film was originally rumored to be about real-life "wizard of table tennis" Marty Reisman, THR reports that it will be closer to a "fictionalized original film." No word on Paltrow's role or how much the real-life Marty factors into the story as of this writing, but the poster A24 shared to announce the movie did have a ping pong ball on it, so he's probably still tangentially related. This is Josh Safdie we're talking about, so anything could happen.
A24 somehow managed to lure Paltrow in after a five year absence from the big screen. Apart from shows like The Politician and a voice credit in American Horror Story, Paltrow's last film credit came as Pepper Potts in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. So much for her plan to "literally disappear from public life" as she got older; maybe watching her old friend Robert Downey Jr. accept his Oscar for Oppenheimer last year really did inspire her to get in front of the camera again.
In addition to Shakespeare In Love and the Avengers films, Paltrow has also graced productions like The Royal Tenenbaums, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Se7en, Emma, Sliding Doors, and many more throughout her long career. Hopefully, this team-up will inspire her to stick around for a while.
