Gwyneth Paltrow loves her friendship with Robert Downey Jr. 3000, so she clearly couldn’t miss his Broadway debut.
“Saw this GENIUS on stage,” Paltrow, 52, wrote via Instagram Story on Saturday, October 12, sharing a picture of the twosome backstage the night before at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater.
Paltrow sported all-black as she stood side-by-side with Downey, 59, who wore black silk pajamas over an orange shirt.
Downey stars in McNeal, a new one-act play from director Bartlett Sher and writer Ayad Akhtar, alongside Melora Hardin, Andrea Martin, Ruthie Ann Miles and more. It is the Oppenheimer actor’s first time performing on the Great White Way.
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“More than anything, it’s just a matter of what I tend to do anyway — when I’m really hunkering down on something — is you got to live a monastic lifestyle,” Downey told reporters earlier this month of making his Broadway debut. “You got to put all your energy into your job and not have too many distractions. New York City is really distracting.”
The play discusses themes of artificial intelligence, artistic integrity, plagiarism and copyright infringement, and uses an array of special effects to move the story along. Downey referred to working with the technical aspects as “strangely natural.” (After all, he played Tony Stark/ Iron Man in multiple Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, which are known for their special effects.)
“It’s a bit of a security blanket to know that it’s a tech-friendly show,” he added at the time. “I’ve been weirdly tied to storytelling about technology, about the dangers and the options set for technology. So it feels just kind of like a deeper exploration of the same thing.”
Paltrow, for her part, played Pepper Potts in Downey’s MCU films, and their two characters eventually got together onscreen. Working with Downey was her initial draw to appearing in the OG Iron Man.
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“It had nothing to do with the size of the budget. It was like, if I got a call that there’s a six-million-dollar movie, and these are the people, I’d do it,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2007. “I’ve always wanted to work with Robert Downey Jr. He’s a genius, and I had never been asked to do a film with him before.”
Sixteen years later, Paltrow revealed to Entertainment Tonight that Downey “could probably always get me back” acting. Paltrow has stepped back from performing in favor of running her lifestyle empire, including her GOOP brand.
Downey’s superhero character was (spoiler alert) killed off in Avengers: Endgame. The actor will return to the MCU, albeit in a different role, during the upcoming phases. News broke in July that Downey will be the next big bad: Doctor Doom.
