COME HOME GWYNETH!

And by home we mean to our cinema screens, not our actual house (that would be weird)

With all of the Goop hoopla (Goopla?), it’s easy to forget that Gwyneth Paltrow is, well, Gwyneth bloody Paltrow: awardwinning, plaudit-amassing actress who has long lit up our cinema houses and made us gasp with her sheer acting chops.

She has been in 40 films. Forty! Which is even more remarkable when you think that she has had one lead role in the last four years – in 2015’s Mortdecai, with Johnny Depp. Other than that, we’ve had a cameo here and there, but no aweinspiring, Gwyneth-worthy, meaty-as-hell role. And honestly, we miss her.

Just look at her work in the late ’90s and early noughties: The Royal Tenenbaums, Shakespeare In Love, The Talented

Mr. Ripley, Sliding Doors – she moved between historical dramas, comedies and indies with ease, collecting critical acclaim and the odd Oscar along the way.

The grim reality is that, once 35 hits, most actresses suffer from the condition I call ‘the-world-decides-they’re-invisibleitis’. The roles they’d have been shoo-ins for go to actresses with an inch less on their waist and five years less on their CV. But times are a-changing. We’re in something of a renaissance period for actresses from that era (of Bewitched and straightened hair). Take Nicole Kidman, who has recently racked up The Beguiled as well as starring in huge TV hit Big Little Lies (along with the equally having-a-moment Reese Witherspoon). They’re getting their fingers around interesting, complex roles for women of their age. Not playing someone a decade younger. Not having to wait another couple of decades more to play a spinster. They are playing women like them.

So, the stage now feels set for Gwyneth’s return to the screen. We would love to see her in an incredible TV drama. We can totally see her kicking ass as an Amazon warrior in the next

Wonder Woman outing. I mean (bear with me), imagine her in a Star Wars movie! Providing counsel to Rey and flummoxing the Stormtroopers! My point, I suppose, is that when it comes to film, Gwyneth can do anything. And we would pay hard cash – literally – to see her do it again.