[dropcap]E[/dropcap]ven Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom doesn’t fully understand the star’s much maligned “conscious uncoupling” from rocker Chris Martin. We spotted Blythe Danner at a VIP dinner for her Sundance film, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” this week and asked how Paltrow was doing. “Wonderful,” she said, adding, “People make fun of this, um, what do they call it? What is that thing that they’ve been doing? Separating, but being?”
“Conscious uncoupling,” we reminded her, of the peculiar phrase that inspired endless think pieces and tweets since Paltrow announced the politically correct breakup in March.
“Yes,” Danner said, “but it’s called ‘conscious’ . . . not ‘conscious uncoupling.’ Conscious…” We assured her we were regrettably, but intimately, familiar with the phrase that was, as one national outlet put it, “mocked round the world.”
She abandoned trying to recall the exact term and summed up the uncoupled couple: “They are so smart…both incredibly brilliant. They’re making it work, they’re great friends and the kids are in wonderful shape. So I have to take my hat off to both of them.”
Danner had just managed to catch the last flight out of Newark before the “blizzard.” “I was supposed to be inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame [Monday night] and that was canceled, thank God, so that allowed me to be here for this.”
In her film, co-starring June Squibb, Danner, 71, plays a widow who starts dating. But she told us of her own love life after the death of her husband Bruce in 2002: “June says in the movie, ‘When you’ve had the best, forget the rest,’ and I kind of feel that way. I had an incredible husband. It would be great if somebody fell in from the sky…because you do get lonely as you get older. But I’m very grateful that I have grandchildren on both coasts and they fill my heart.
“This is the first leading role I’ve ever had and I’ve been in the business for 50 years! I’ve done many leading roles in plays, but never in a movie. I’m an actor who has been in a lot of films, but always in a supporting role, so it’s been a thrill to be selected to play this wonderful woman.”
