Lately it seems actors have been more loose-lipped about colleagues who have rubbed them the wrong way. And though Dune star Rebecca Ferguson never named the co-star who set her off earlier this year—while Sarah Paulson certainly didn’t mind naming and shaming—this week it’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s turn in the hot seat.
Gavin & Stacey actress Ruth Jones recently recalled the “heartbreaking” interaction she had with Paltrow on the set of Emma, revealing that Paltrow treated her like “nothing.” Speaking on the latest episode of the Brydon & podcast, Jones told host Rob Brydon that she remembers her job on the 1996 film for “several reasons.”
“It was the first film I’d done,” she began. “I had two lines. It was something like I had to open the door. I had to announce Gwyneth Paltrow and say, ‘Miss Woodhouse is here,’ and then I had to say, ‘Goodbye, Miss Woodhouse’ at the exit and let her out.”
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That’s when, according to Jones, things got testy between her and the more experienced actress.
“And Gwyneth Paltrow cut one of my lines. She said, ‘Does she really need to say that?’” Jones continued. “For people who are starting out, if you’ve got two lines, and somebody cuts 50 percent of your script, it’s heartbreaking.”
Jones, who’s gone on to star in popular comedy series like Stella and Gavin & Stacey, said that in addition to wanting to cut one of her only lines, Paltrow “didn’t want to talk to me.”
She and Paltrow found themselves sharing a moment alone, so Jones tried to make conversation, she explained. “When I had to do the scene letting her out of the house,” she said, “it was just me and Gwyneth behind the door, and so we were just [silent].”
“I tried to make conversation with her,” Jones said, recalling that she asked Paltrow, “‘So do you have any Welsh connections?’ Because obviously [with the name] Gwyneth, I always think of it as a Welsh name, [so I asked] ‘How come you’re called Gwyneth?’”
The star gave Jones a conversation-halting answer. “She said, ‘Oh, my mother had a friend called Gwyneth and she really liked the name, so she called me Gwyneth.’ And she was quite dismissive of me.”
Jones added, “I was nothing [on the production]. I had one line. Well, [I] did have two lines, and now down to one.”
Paltrow did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
