The trial of Gwyneth Paltrow, actress and lifestyle architect, versus Terry Sanderson, retired optometrist, is in its second week. At stake is the answer to who skied into whom on an exclusive slope in Utah, and $300,000, the amount for which Sanderson is suing Paltrow (Paltrow, in turn, countersued Sanderson for a dollar and legal fees). The trial has been streamed on Law & Crime, Court TV, and memed across the internet in that time. As such, it's been sandwiched on either side of the season four premiere of Succession, an HBO satire that skewers the lives and desperation of the ultra-wealthy. These two “shows” aren’t related at all, but the center of the Venn diagram for their audiences is, as they say, a circle. Rich misery—still a fruitful avenue for attention harvesting.

Part of the joy of Succession is how clearly articulated the characters are, especially with regard to their wealth; and part of the joy of Paltrow on the stand is how clearly articulated she is, how she never strays from her persona as the pristinely confident woman of privilege just because she’s being sued. In fact, that persona appears to have been rendered clearer than ever up there on the stand. 

In stories, as the writing workshop folks will tell you, a well-drawn character is one whose motivations are legible. That’s true whether it’s on the page or on screen or in tabloids. The more they make choices according to the personalities sketched out for them, the more believable they are and the more satisfying they are to consume. Paltrow is always herself, and it’s gratifying to watch her in this role of woman in this he-said, she-said case about a ski collision on the slopes of Deer Valley, Utah. 

The Paltrow we know smokes one cigarette a week. She doesn’t apologize for being rich and out of touch, no matter how upset the internet gets over yoni eggs or what she would rather do than feed herself or her children food from a can (“die,” “smoke crack”). Right before the trial began a week ago, she went viral for categorizing “bone broth” as a “soup” that she “eats” for lunch.

On the stand, this is the Paltrow who submits herself to questioning. There, Paltrow recalls how she cursed after the collision happened, and then apologizes for cursing in a matter-of-fact way that betrays how extremely not sorry for cursing she is. She tells the prosecutor who’s questioning her that she’s “just under 5’10” but thinks she’s “shrinking,” with a smile. Speaking to her own losses that day on the slopes, she says with a beautifully straight face, “Well, we lost half a day of skiing.” 

She does all of this while impeccably dressed in The Row, Prada, and Loro Piana. All earth tones. Absolutely no flash. Hair? Sensational in a loose wave. Makeup? Minimal. There are no big swings here, nothing meaningfully out of the ordinary from the Paltrow seen on her site or on social media or at some big Hollywood event. 

Paltrow’s personality is why Goop, her wellness brand, is so successful. She tells a clear story. She’s an excellent leading lady who understands completely, it always appears, how things look or sound, and that she can make a lot more money by looking and sounding impossibly wealthy. She has long monetized the outrage lobbed in her general direction—as of 2021, she’s built Goop into an estimated $250 million media and retail empire at least in part on the back of that outrage. For an audience that delights in being shocked by the most out of touch person alive, there’s a kind of wish fulfillment in watching her get cross-examined about something not exactly inconsequential, but close to it. (Sanderson argues he suffered neurological damage after the collision; Paltrow’s team argues that the neurological issues he claims were caused by the accident were a long-standing medical issue for him.) 

It’s helpful, too, when every one of her costars, I mean defense team, are also characters. Her lawyer, Steve Owens, is…loose, let’s call it. Owens, explaining with incredible confidence to the jury what happened post-collision, said that his client went to join her party farther down the mountain. “Her daughter, Apple,” he said, “now 18, then [EXTREMELY LONG PAUSE] eight. I think.”

“Eleven,” said Paltrow’s disembodied voice from behind him. This is a comedy! 

Apple herself wrote a statement that Paltrow’s team read in court. 

“I noticed she looked a bit shocked, and I asked what had happened,” Apple was quoted as saying, “and she said, ‘This a-hole ran into me. He ran right into my back.’”

“She was in a state of shock,” the statement continued. “She decided after that she was not going to ski for the rest of the day, which she never does; she always stays on. But she decided to get off because she was in shock and she was in a bit of pain... I never see her really shaken up like that. She was very clearly visibly upset, and she had some sort of pain.”

Moses, her son, recalled in his deposition that the collision is the reason Paltrow “went to the spa and got a massage.”

This is a lawsuit and countersuit about  two people who made a faux pas while doing an expensive activity in an exclusive place. Sanderson’s team is leaning into that idea. They’re trying to portray Paltrow as an out of touch celebrity who made the faux pas. But that’s a mistake—at least in the court of public opinion. She owns the out of touch célébrité ​​archetype. It is her wheelhouse. Whatever the jury decides, being Gwyneth Paltrow means never having to say you’re sorry, and watching her never say sorry, holding fast to her touched perception of things, is the best thing on television right now. Besides, possibly, Succession.