In a poll conducted by Movietickets.com and news-pegged to Administrative Professionals’ Day (which is next week, bitches!), Anne Hathaway’s character Andie in The Devil Wears Prada has been voted the all-time best assistant character in film. While I agree that her character was very relatable and hit a lot of the right notes for me, I always disliked Andie’s (in the book and in the movie) entitlement complex and holier-than-thou attitude. I probably would have voted for one of the 9 to 5 ladies, personally, but I also am hugely biased toward anything that involves Dolly Parton. Apparently, I’m not alone, since Dolly came in second. Here’s the list, clearly written by someone who cared more about using the actors’ names than the characters’:
- Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada
- Dolly Parton in 9 to 5
- Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich
- Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man
- Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary
Interesting that all the winners were ladies. Perhaps this has something to do with our culture’s view of assistants as primarily female? I sort of wonder if this list was more of a “vote for the most recent assistant character you can remember,” although the inclusion of 9 to 5 would be the exception. Maybe this is a “which assistant character would you most want to sleep with?” I’d believe that one. Memories are short, and not everyone cares as deeply about people who play assistant roles in movies as I do.
STA friend John Brooks of My ReViews is a huge superhero fan, so we asked him to report back to us on how Gwyneth Paltrow did playing an assistant in Iron Man. Paltrow plays Virginia “Pepper” Potts, the redheaded Girl Friday to Robert Downey Jr.’s boss Tony Stark.
There are a lot of reasons we love Iron Man (which grossed over a jillion dollars this past weekend): Robert Downey Jr. as millionaire industrialist womanizing player-turned superhero Tony Stark; the amazing effects; the fact that it contains actual, three-dimensional human characters; that awesome superhero suit; Robert Downey Jr. And call us self-absorbed, but what we love most is the portrayal of Tony’s personal assistant, Pepper Potts. And so let us take this opportunity to bestow mad STA props to the following:-To Gwyneth Paltrow, for not thinking she’s too good to take on an assistant job, even when she is only playing one in an enormously-budgeted Hollywood epic.
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Gwyneth Paltrow plays an assistant in Iron Man, so it seems only logical that the subject of assistants might come up in her press interviews. Here’s what she had to say on the topic:
She said: “I think all women are like that [organized]. We’re very multi-tasking, head of the house. We have to be. Could you imagine what would happen if a man was in charge of all that stuff?”
Although she is super-organised, Gwyneth admits she does have a personal assistant to help her out when her hectic lifestyle gets too much for her. She added to Britain’s Heart FM radio station: “I definitely need help. I’m doing a lot of things at once, so I want someone who is smarter than me – which is easily done!”
OK, a couple of things here, Gwyneth. First of all, a housekeeper and an assistant are actually different things (although not every celebrity seems to make the distinction, Britney). That’s great that you supposedly keep your household organized. But do you book your own travel? Pick up your own dry cleaning? Who calls in refills of your prescriptions? Who sits in the house all day waiting for the plumber to show up? You are famous, so that person is probably NOT YOU.
Don’t try to feed people a line about how you only call on an assistant when you need extra help. You’ve probably gotten so used to having an assistant around that you don’t even register the work they do. It’s great that you pitch in to vacuum or pick up the kids’ toys once in a while, but let’s not be naive. If I run into you at Duane Reade at 2 AM and you have messy hair and are picking up cough syrup, I’ll take back what I said. But let’s be honest…it’s not going to happen.
If you watched the Superbowl, you may have seen an ad for the upcoming movie Iron Man. The movie stars Robert Downey, Jr. as “a military industrialist who becomes an ironclad superhero.” Whatever that means. However, just as Batman has Alfred, Downey’s character, Tony Stark, also had a trusted and indispensable assistant. This assistant, Virginia “Pepper” Potts, is played by Oscar winner and raw foodist Gwyneth Paltrow. The movie will be released in May.
What can we say? Playing a movie assistant kickstarted Anne Hathaway’s career, and now everyone else wants in.
