Cannes, France - Gwyneth Paltrow, returning to the screen playing a woman trapped in an obsessive love affair, said Tuesday she had been concerned that after a protracted absence she may have lost her place in Hollywood.
05/19/2008 - Gwyneth Paltrow - 2008 Cannes Film Festival - "Two Lovers" Premiere - Arrivals - Palais des Festivals - Cannes, France © Solarpix / PR Photos
'I did not know whether there would be a place for me,' said Paltrow at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival marking the premiere of her latest movie Two Lovers.
'Hollywood is pretty cutthroat,' said Paltrow who had taken a break from Hollywood to launch a family.
This she said was particularly the case for women, she said, adding that there is always someone prettier or younger than you.
But she said about her comeback, 'I really felt I had something to say.'
Indeed, Two Lovers by writer/director James Gray is one of a string of acting projects the actress has launched, including starring in the blockbuster Iron Man in addition to Gray's film in which she bears a breast.
The title of the film Two Lovers tells almost everything about Gray's latest movie. Paltrow plays a woman trapped in an obsessive love affair with one of new bosses in a New York law firm.
'The tragedy of my character is that she can't free herself to see the big picture,' said Paltrow.
The film is set in Brooklyn and also stars Joaquin Phoenix as a depressed young man torn between a family friend played by Vinessa Shaw and his volatile beautiful neighbour played by Paltrow. The movie also stars legendary actress Isabella Rossellini.
Speaking at the press conference, Gray said the movie was never conceived as a romantic comedy and conceded that making a serious romantic story was much harder. In love, people are in a heightened state of happiness, which made romantic comedies easier to make, he said.
The director of We Own the Night and Little Odessa, Gray will be no doubt hoping that his third appearance in Cannes will be lucky for him with Two Lovers in the race for Cannes' coveted Palme d'Or.
During Tuesday's press conference he lashed out at Hollywood and current US cinema saying that the corporate side was now running rampant and had changed the nature of US movie making over the last three decades.
'The economic situation of films is now so large that they have to appeal as many people as possible,' said Gray.
The result, he said, had been to produce 'a fast-food' movie version of life. 'You are force feeding crap to the people,' he said.
He said that the new Hollywood structure was now dominating American story telling.
© Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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