13 Great Actors Completely Wasted In MCU Movies
5. Gwyneth Paltrow - Iron Man
The Role: Pepper Potts
Putting aside all of those whispers of Paltrow being "difficult" (an unfair statement based mostly on the reception of her weird Goop brand - vaginal steaming anyone?!), her part in the MCU has been mostly entirely forgettable.
Sure, Pepper Potts plays a significant narrative role as Tony Stark's love interest, but it really would have been nice of Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon to give her something to actually do while Tony falls in love with her. Shane Black managed to give her something to do with the Extremis story-line in Iron Man 3, but even then she became an object in the story rather than a fully developed character.
Eventually, the MCU writers just seemed to run out of things to do with her and basically retired the character (with Tony saying they were taking a break because he wouldn't stop cheating on her with sexy robot men or something). The fact that that didn't matter at all tells you all you need to know about how badly they handled the character for the most part.
She might be back now thanks to Spider-Man: Homecoming, but if it turned out that Potts had completely turned her back on the role because of a lack of actual substance, nobody should have been shocked. Or judged her at all.