Gwyneth looks at life as an opening, adventure, love… and sex!

MANILA, Philippines - Care for a beauty tip from Gwyneth Paltrow? It’s sex. Well, that, and some more.

The 40-year-old actress, one of the most beautiful faces to ever grace cinema, shared the secret to her beauty during last week’s press junket in Los Angeles for Marvel’s Iron Man 3 to the delight of this writer, who, for a few moments, was starstruck when the actress walked into the Wetherly Room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills and smiled my way — actually, she smiled towards the direction of 20 or so other journalists gathered in the room.

The other stars of Iron Man 3 Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle and Sir Ben Kingsley joined the Oscar-winning star during the 30-minute press conference.

Gwyneth was asked how she’s kept her beauty despite having been in the business for more than two decades now. She replied, “I honestly think that it’s pretty basic stuff like exercise and, I think, self-discovery, like, knowing that you are in a process and trying to interpret suffering as life lessons as opposed to burdens. Always looking at life as an opening, an adventure — and love. And sex!”

Robert, Don and Ben laughed with Gwyneth after she mentioned her last secret, which was the only juicy secret she allowed herself to share. She could have shared juicy spoilers from the movie, too, but she kept herself from doing it. Thankfully.

Iron Man 3 is the continuation of the epic, big-screen adventures of the world’s favorite billionaire-inventor-Super Hero, Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man.

This third installment picks up the story after the events depicted in last year’s smash hit The Avengers. This time, Iron Man is faced with a mysterious enemy known as The Mandarin, the sinister head of the terrorist organization called The Ten Rings.

Oscar-winning actor Ben joins Iron Man 3 as The Mandarin and his take on the villainous role is something that only an actor of his great caliber could have done — and it was most likely helped by his admiration of the franchise.

“I love the style of the film,” he declared. “I love the way that they exploit the most beautiful, glittering action sequences and then every amazing action sequence that stimulates and excites the audience is always followed by a moment of tenderness, vulnerability, wit… an explosion of a need for revenge always brings you back to these wonderful human values and that’s why I say the franchise has a heart.”

The great British actor also shared the warm welcome he received from the cast.

“The welcome from Gwyneth, from Robert, from Don, from everybody was quite extraordinary,” he said. “They welcome you, they give you a wonderful place to stand to do your job and you just get on with it. You don’t feel you are being tested in the wrong way. You feel you are being stimulated and excited by the material in a right way. I think the confidence of the team is demonstrated by how they welcome people.”

Don responded to Ben’s lavish compliments with equal enthusiasm, “We really felt like he classed up the joint. It was a lot of fun!”

“We needed a better bad guy than we ever had and Sir Ben delivered that in spades,” Robert added.

Don, who, in the movie, finally becomes War Machine, remarked that with the addition of Ben to the cast, the movie “really pays up on the promise that the first two had. We get to see all these characters in a much deeper way. We get to see the relationship between Pepper and Tony in a much deeper way.”

Indeed.

In Iron Man 3, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts both undergo a change that will reveal an additional layer to their characters. Whether they survive that transformation is for the audience to discover. This writer will honor the production request to keep the plot spoilers a secret as much as possible.

“She really comes into her own,” Gwyneth said of her character Pepper’s transformation in the movie. “It’s a new feminist role, in a way. She really is stepping into her power. She is finding her voice. She is on equal footing with her relationship. She’s asking that her needs be met as well and she gets to do all the physical stuff in the end.”

There’s a pivotal scene in the movie, also shown in the trailer, when Pepper dons the Iron Man suit to save Tony. 

Was that a hint of her future movie role plans? Would she welcome a female Iron Man role if offered?

She only laughed when asked these questions.

“I am a little old for this role,” she finally said.  

But Robert immediately jumped on what she said and jokingly admonished her to “never say that again!”

The on-screen chemistry between Robert and Gwyneth is rooted in the natural chemistry they have in person. Their playful banter showed the dynamic in their relationship that was first noticed by the director of the first Iron Man, Jon Favreau, who stars in the current movie as Tony Stark’s trusted bodyguard Happy Hogan.

“When we cast Gwyneth and she walked in to Jon’s office, she started welling up,” Robert recalled. “And, I, kind of went along with her and I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m an actor, I get emotional over anything. What is this about?’ And I was looking and there was this feeling that now this movie is going to work.”

What makes the franchise work, too, is Robert’s incredible characterization of Tony Stark. The actor is so good that most people think he is not acting at all.

“When you are a professional, you have an aesthetic distance,” he replied when asked how much of Tony Stark was himself and how much of himself was Tony Stark. “The older you get and the more life continue to whittle you down and smash your ego, the less you identify with things that are essentially just metaphors for narcissism or vain glory or deep-seated fear and all that stuff.”

He added that as Tony Stark appears more real, he becomes “moderately more humble and more humanized.”

(Iron Man 3 is now showing in theaters.)