Gwyneth Paltrow Once Thought Ruining Her ‘Mortdecai’ Kiss Scenes With Johnny Depp Would Get Her Fired
Gwyneth Paltrow is used to kissing many actors on screen. But she had a particularly difficult time kissing her Mortdecai co-star Johnny Depp. So much so that the Oscar-winner felt she was in danger of being fired for not being able to complete the scene.
Gwyneth Paltrow always wanted to work with Johnny Depp
In her long and storied filmography, Gwyneth Paltrow never seemed to cross paths with Johnny Depp professionally. The two finally worked together as co-leads in the 2015 comedy Mortdecai. Upon collaborating, Paltrow discovered working with Depp was as pleasant as she might have hoped it’d be.
“I had always wanted to work with Johnny Depp,” Paltrow told Good Morning America. “I am so lucky that they asked me to do [Mortdecai] because he is extraordinary. And, I don’t know, it was wonderful. It was such a great, fun experience.”
Although the two officially worked together on set, Paltrow actually met Depp years earlier. One thing that struck Paltrow about Depp was how cool the Pirates of the Caribbean star was.
“I remember meeting Johnny, I was invited to some type of aftershow thing in London. And, it was the first time we really hung out,” Paltrow once said on The Ellen Show. “And, I went in, and, you know, I thought I was like sort of cool until I met him….Then, he was like so cool, rolling cigarettes and stuff. And I was like, ‘Wow, I’m a total nerdy mom.’”
Gwyneth Paltrow once worried she was going to get Fired after kissing Johnny Depp in ‘Mortdecai’
Gwyneth Paltrow might have had too much fun on the set of Mortdecai, and the Shakespeare in Love actor briefly joked she thought she was going to get fired because of it. Stopping by on The Rachel Ray Show, Paltrow revealed it was particularly difficult getting through the kissing scenes with Depp.
It started off as hilarious but soon became a problem because she kept compromising the scene. But the scene in question was so funny that Paltrow had trouble maintaining her composure.
“I ruined probably 15 takes – which was funny at first,” she said. “Until you look around and the crew’s like, ‘Oh my God.’ I honestly was digging my nails into my skin to not laugh by the end of the thing because I was like, ‘I’m going to get fired! I’ve ruined like 15 takes!’”
Paltrow also joked that she wanted to do an intimate scene like the one Penelope Cruz once did with Depp in Blow.
“How come Penelope Cruz gets to do the movie where they’re all sexy and making out and I’m making out with this, like, wig on his face?” she quipped.
‘Mortdecai’ was Gwyneth Paltrow’s last leading role in a film
Apart from working with Johnny Depp, Mortdecai was also a special film for Paltrow in another way. So far, it’s been the star’s last movie where she appeared in a leading role. After the 2015 comedy, Paltrow has scaled back to playing more supporting characters, like her role as Pepper Pots in the Avengers films. But this is by design, as Paltrow revealed she fell out of love with acting.
“I think that when you hit the bullseye when you’re 26 years old and you’re a metrics-driven person who frankly doesn’t love acting that much as it turns out,” she told Sirius XM. “It wasn’t like I felt like this isn’t worth doing, I felt like, well now who am I supposed to be? What am I driving towards?”
There were also other things about being an actor that Paltrow simply didn’t enjoy.
“It’s hard to plant roots,” she elaborated. “I’m such a homebody, you know me. I like to be with my old friends and cook and squeeze my kids. Like, I don’t want to be alone in a hotel room in Budapest for six weeks. It’s just not who I am.”
