Gwyneth Paltrow understands that good films aren’t necessarily $300 million productions.
Appearing on First We Feast’s Hot Ones, hosted by Sean Evans, she was asked about director Cord Jefferson’s recent Oscar speech.
Jefferson won the Best Adapted Screenplay award for American Fiction, and used the platform to beg Hollywood for budget sanity. “Instead of making one $200 million movie, try making 20 $10 million movies,” he said in his acceptance speech.
Paltrow starred as Pepper Potts in the Iron Man films, as well as in other MCU films including Spider-Man: Homecoming and Avengers: Endgame.
Paltrow agreed with Jefferson’s sentiments.
“I absolutely understand where he’s coming from,” Paltrow said. “You want the best chance to have a strong ROI. People put a lot of money into these things and they want them to be profitable.
“But if I look at the industry as a whole, this big push into superhero movies … you can only make so many good ones that feel truly original, and yet they’re still always trying to reach as many people as possible, which sometimes hinders quality or specificity or real point of view.”
Paltrow understands that some of the films she made earlier in her career wouldn’t be made today.
“You get more diversity of art when there is less at stake and people can express their true voice and make a film the way they want to make it. Those are generally the more resonant ones,” she said.