Ruth Jones: 'Gwyneth wasn't friendly'

Ruth Jones: 'Gwyneth wasn't friendly'
Ruth Jones: 'Gwyneth wasn't friendly' (Image credit: PA)

Ruth Jones has recalled how her attempts to befriend Gwyneth Paltrow when they worked together on a film fell flat. The Gavin And Stacey star appeared in a film adaptation of Emma, starring Hollywood actress Gwyneth, and told the Reader's Digest how she tried to bond with her over her Welsh roots. Ruth said: "I got a part in the film Emma in which Gwyneth was playing the lead. "She was going out with Brad Pitt at the time. I asked her if, with a name like Gwyneth, she had any Welsh connections. "She wasn't terribly friendly. I thought, 'Where I come from, it's an old ladies' name anyway!'." The 45-year-old actress and writer - who will soon be appearing in new Sky1 comedy drama Stella - also revealed how she failed to get a place to study drama at Manchester University after she admitted to reading Jackie Collins' Hollywood Wives at her interview. Ruth said: "Unsurprisingly, I didn't get a place there - but, years later, I had dinner with Jackie Collins. She's a Gavin And Stacey fan. "I told her that story, and she gave me a signed copy of her latest book - so that worked out alright in the end!" Stella starts on Friday January 6, 2012, at 9pm on Sky1

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.