Gwyneth Paltrow Quietly Made Pepper Potts’ MCU Return A Possible Reality, And I Know The Perfect Way

Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts in first Iron Man movie
(Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Over the years, Gwyneth Paltrow has been in seven Marvel movies, starting with the MCU film that ushered in the franchise, 2008’s Iron Man. Back in 2019 the actress seemingly said goodbye to the MCU when she appeared as Pepper Potts in Avengers: Endgame, but per recent comments, we could see her in one of the upcoming Marvel movies on the way. As a fan of the comic book universe since the beginning, I have an idea of where and how I’d like to see her if it does happen.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Name-Dropped Marvel In Recent Appearance

The actress and Goop CEO was a keynote speaker at Providence’s Brown University over the weekend, which her son Moses Martin currently attends. During a question and answer portion of the event she said the following about “future projects”, The Brown Daily Herald:

I might be in another Marvel movie.

That’s the scope of what we know about Paltrow and how she might return to the MCU, but how exciting is that should the “might” become a reality? Currently, it’s been over six years since Potts’ last appearance in the superhero franchise.

Paltrow’s history talking about the MCU over the years has had an interesting past. She has gushed about how much she loved working with Robert Downey Jr. and director Jon Favreau on the first movie (despite her distaste for her wig), but has also been honest about never actually watching an Avengers movie. She’s also forgotten she was in Spider-Man: Homecoming on multiple occasions. But it looks like that doesn’t mean she’ll never answer the call to return to her iconic character.

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How I’d Like To See Pepper Potts Return To The MCU

Because Pepper Potts will forever be associated with Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, and RDJ is officially coming back to the MCU next year as a part of the Avengers: Doomsday cast, I’d like to see Paltrow return alongside her real-life friend in some capacity. I have two perfect ideas about how I’d like to see it happen.

The first is, I’d like to see her help the Avengers take down Downey’s Doctor Doom perhaps with some interpersonal thing she knows about her late husband that somehow connects with Downey's two MCU characters. Using Iron Man technology against him would be kind of bittersweet because it's like she's fighting her husband, and could also be a beautiful tribute to their legacy on the Iron Man trilogy.

The other idea I have is if Gwyneth Paltrow plays another character in the MCU from Downey’s Doctor Doom universe just like him. That would be a fun way to see the pair together, but bring us something different from the dynamic we remember from Stark and Potts in their other MCU movies. I’m thinking about the upcoming Avengers movies, but I could also see her making a cameo in the next Spider-Man movie, Brand New Day. As it goes with the MCU, the secrecy is strong. Who knows, maybe she's already filmed it!

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.

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