Ryan Reynolds has told how he got Gwyneth Paltrow to appear on Astronomer’s hilarious PSA after Coldplay’s kiss cam scandal broke.
Reynolds’ company, Maximum Effort, helped create the tongue-in-cheek ad starring Paltrow, which was released just days after Astronomer CEO Andy Bailon was seen on Coldplay’s Kiss Cam in Boston in the arms of colleague Christine Cabot.
Paltrow’s ex-husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, joked that the pair were having an “affair” when they quickly removed themselves from camera view.
“Just 14 hours later, I’m paying for it and I still haven’t received their blessing (and I knew) that at the time, nobody knew what Astronomer was doing,” Reynolds said during a panel discussion at the Wall Street Journal’s CMO Council Summit, according to People magazine.
“So I thought, ‘What if Gwyneth explains it?'” Reynolds, 49, said.
“I found Astronomer to be a great company,” he continued of the struggling company. “They do really great things.”
“But it was a real opportunity for them to take the conversation away from where it came from and focus on what was important, even though I think it was so detrimental, in a fun, easy, emotional, nice way,” the “Free Guy” actor explained.
Mr. Byron and Mr. Cabot, who worked as the company’s human resources director, ultimately resigned from their respective positions after the sighting spread.
In the wake of the July 16 scandal, Paltrow appeared in a PSA for the company on July 25, cheerfully avoiding the topic and explaining what the company actually does.
“I was hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of over 300 employees at Astronomer,” the Oscar winner begins in the clip.
Sitting at a formal desk, the actress explained that the company had “received a lot of questions over the past few days and wanted us to answer the most common questions.”
As the Goop founder, 53, continued, text appeared on the screen: “Q: Oh! What’s the real deal?”
The actress reappeared and replied, “Yes! Astronomer is the perfect place to run Apache Airflow!”
“Q: How’s your social media team doing?” Another question began as the “Shakespeare in Love” actress reappeared.
“Yes!” she cried. “We still have spaces available for the Beyond Analytics event this September!”
“And now we get back to doing what we do best and delivering innovative results to our customers,” she concluded, adding, “Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.”
Paltrow was married to Martin, who unintentionally became the center of the astronomer scandal, from 2003 to 2014.
The former power couple have two adult children, daughter Apple, 21, and son Moses, 19.
