<img title="Image: http://www.myvivvo.com/thumbnail.php?file=art.iron.paltrow.ap_672363727.jpg&amp;size=article_medium" src="http://www.myvivvo.com/thumbnail.php?file=art.iron.paltrow.ap_672363727.jpg&amp;size=article_medium" alt="Gwyneth Paltrow is back -- and on her terms">
										
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								<span>When Gwyneth Paltrow made the rounds to promote "Iron Man," 
the buzz wasn't about the Oscar winner's return to the screen after an 
extended hiatus. It wasn't about the curious casting of a serious 
actress as a superhero's secretary.<br><br>It was about her shoes.<br><br>Paltrow's
 sky-high stilettos, shoulder-length curls and up-to-there skirts were 
seen as a sign: She's shedding her stay-at-home mom sweat pants and is 
ready to reclaim her throne in the celebrity pantheon.<br><br>"In 
England, there were pages in the newspaper on my various footwear," she 
says. "I think there's some excitement that I'm back in high heels and, 
you know, being glamorous."<br><br>She says this while decked out in 
another pair of killer pumps, with no sense of surprise that a change of
 clothing could set off a minor tempest of speculation about her life.<br><br>Paltrow
 has what might be called a conflicted relationship with Hollywood. Even
 when she's not working, she's tailed by paparazzi and scrutinized for 
her fashion, her mothering and her marriage to a famous rock star, 
Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.<br><br>That union is one she works hard 
to keep private. She calls the latest gossip about the state of her 
marriage, fueled by her daring outfits and the couple's refusal to 
appear on red carpets together, "hilarious."<br><br>The fascination with
 her private life has been frustrating, but also meant she lost little 
luster in the few years that she's focused on her daughter Apple, 4, and
 son Moses, 2.<br><br>"There were some days where I thought, after I had
 my son and I couldn't lose the weight and I was in sweat pants and I 
was depressed and I was thinking, you know, will I ever be able to go 
back? Will they take me back?" she said.<br><br>Those feelings were exacerbated by the postpartum depression she says she experienced after the birth of her son.<br><br>She
 left Hollywood a few years earlier following the death of her father, 
director Bruce Paltrow, with the feeling that she had already finished 
what she set out to accomplish. She'd done star turns in critically 
acclaimed movies. She'd won an Academy Award for "Shakespeare in Love." 
She'd been the "it" girl on the arms of Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck.<br><br>It was time for her to focus on her family.<br><br>"You
 know, they change so quickly and the idea of somebody else being there 
when they do their first this or say their first that is just like, it 
makes me die," she says.<br><br>Her kids know her only as Mommy. "They've never seen me on-screen or anything. They have no idea."<br><br>But Hollywood years can be like dog years -- three of them offscreen can seem like a decade, enough to torpedo a star's career.<br><br>"I
 think especially in my own business it confounded people that I was 
willing to walk away from that and to lose my place on the A-list and 
say, it's not important to me right now in my life," she says.<br><br>"Iron
 Man" marks her big comeback after small parts in "Running With 
Scissors" and her brother's film, "The Good Night." In the first of the 
summer blockbusters, she joins an all-star cast of Robert Downey Jr., 
Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges and director Jon Favreau. With a $100 
million-plus opening weekend, it's become the first blockbuster of the 
summer.<br><br>"As soon as we heard she was interested, we put her in 
the movie," Favreau says. "Gwyneth is refined, classy, smart and mature.
 She seemed a good pairing for Robert (Downey Jr.). It was a very quick 
decision."<br><br>For Paltrow, the supporting role of Pepper Potts, the 
dutiful assistant and possible love interest, was a good transition, 
allowing her to work two or three days a week while the rest of the cast
 went off to blow things up in the desert.<br><br>She spent time with 
her children at the family house in California that her mother, actress 
Blythe Danner, subsequently sold. "It was just sort of reliving my own 
childhood again but with them, and it was just kind of a magical time."<br><br>Working with Downey was also invigorating.<br><br>"He
 would come into the trailer in the morning when we were going to read 
the scene and he would literally ball up the script and throw it against
 the wall and say, 'This sucks, let's start over,' " she says. "So it 
was like, 'OK! Well! What are we going to do today?'"<br><br>Downey 
insists there were no hurt feelings about the give-and-take: "I don't 
think 'genius' and 'superhero script' belong in the same sentence," he 
says.<br><br>Both stars have indicated they are open to sequels -- and Marvel has already announced that "Iron Man 2" is slated for 2010.<br><br>So
 Paltrow is back, but on her terms. After shooting the upcoming "Two 
Lovers" with Joaquin Phoenix, she's taking the rest of the spring and 
summer off.<br><br>"I don't think I could go back to ever doing three, 
four, five movies a year. There's just no way. There's no way," she 
says. "Maybe when they're in college. But by that point no one will want
 me in a movie anymore, probably."</span>
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