‘This might be too hot to touch’: Gwyneth Paltrow says conscious disengagement cost her a movie role | film

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow said she was fired from a movie due to media attention on her divorce from Chris Martin in 2014.

Speaking on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang, Paltrow blamed the negative headlines surrounding the split – which the couple described in their announcement as a “conscious break-up” – for her losing out on the role she was due to play shortly afterwards.

“I was supposed to do a movie at some point, and it was after my conscious breakup with Chris, and there were a lot of harsh things in the press,” Paltrow said. “I think the dealer was saying, ‘This might be too hot to touch.’”

Paltrow then agreed with Poehler’s suggestion that the film company’s thinking was, “We don’t need the heat.”

“So that was cool!” Paltrow continued. “Because I was going to get a divorce, and then I got fired. It was pretty amazing.”

Paltrow and the Coldplay singer announced their split in 2014, after 11 years of marriage, in a long post on her Goop website, titled Conscious Uncoupling, explaining: “We have always conducted our relationship privately, and hope that when we intentionally separate and co-parent, we will be able to continue in the same way.”

The phrase was widely mocked at the time, but Paltrow told Poehler that she believes her awareness and Martin’s approach to divorce are the real cause of the backlash.

“Let’s say you had a really bad divorce, or your parents had a really bad divorce,” Paltrow said. “Then you hear this idea that it doesn’t have to be this way. I think implicit learning is like, ‘Oh, fuck.’ Like, they say I did something wrong.”

She continued, “It makes sense to me, like, ‘Oh no, does this mean I screwed up someone?’ Like, that’s not a nice thing to think about. So I understand why it was so personal for people.”

Paltrow is now promoting Marty Supreme, in which she plays a faded starlet who has an affair with ping-pong player Timothée Chalamet. This role marks her return to films after a 10-year break, during which she made only small cameo appearances in Marvel films.

Writing in Vogue in 2022, Paltrow reflected on the fallout from her breakup statement by saying she was surprised by its severity.

“The crowd’s surprise quickly gave way to anger and sarcasm. A strange mixture of sarcasm and anger that I had never seen before. I was already so torn apart by what had been a difficult year,” she wrote. “Frankly, the severity of the response has me burying my head deeper in the sand than I ever have before in my public life.”

The following year, in a 2023 Instagram Q&A, the actress recalled the phrase and said she was proud to advocate for a positive and compassionate approach to breakups.

“It makes me proud when people come up to me on the streets and say, ‘Thank you for introducing this concept because I’ve become good friends with my ex,'” she said. “I’m so glad we were able to play a small role in this cultural shift.”