1997: Gwyneth Paltrow in "Hard Eight"

We're revisiting the 1997 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternates to Oscar's ballot.

I’m betting that we (the public, spiritual types, film people, you specifically) have some thoughts about Ms. Goop. Some of these thoughts might be compartmentalized to certain aspects of her career, while others bleed over into a general patina of how one perceives her. We (the writer of this article) won’t and frankly don’t have the time to get into the grifter empire, the nepotism, her instrumentality amongst the many journalists and witnesses who helped to bring down Harvey Weinstein, Bosco’s awful 'Snatch Game', the lazy potshots from Knives Out, or her advice to combat the symptoms of Long COVID using a keto diet as she is currently doing, but know that these thoughts are in the back of our mind at all times when the subject of Gwyneth Paltrow is summoned into a conversation. 

There’s plenty of opinions about her that one could have, but for the purposes of this write-up - a tribute of her resourceful, top-flight performance in Hard Eight that’s as worthy of recognition as anyone else in Boogie Nights the same year - let’s keep it simple and state, man, wasn’t she a fantastic actress when she wanted to be?

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