Bouncing Back


Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow deny relationship rumors. But they tell
EW about their public smooch and how they changed the release date of
''Bounce'' by Dave Karger

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,85697~1~~,00.html


If something about ''Bounce,'' a romantic drama set during the
aftermath of an airline tragedy, seems strangely familiar, consider
the names of the headliners: Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow. Hey...
weren't they? Aren't they...? What exactly IS the deal with those
two? And wasn't the movie, which opens Nov. 17, supposed to come out
last summer? For those of you who haven't stood in a supermarket
checkout line lately, Affleck himself -- in this week's Entertainment
Weekly cover story -- would like to explain: ''I can tell you
unequivocally that Gwyneth and I are NOT going out. We're not a
COUPLE. We're not an ITEM.'' And don't be fooled by the recent
paparazzi shots that show him affectionately kissing and hugging
Paltrow on the streets of Paris. ''I do love her very much and I care
about her enormously, as that picture indicates,'' he says, when
shown the photos. ''But I hug a lot of people this way. Whether or
not people believe that is up to them.''

For her part, Paltrow denies the relationship rumors, too. ''If we're
in the same city, we go out,'' she says in the EW cover story.
''We're close. Sometimes when I'm in L.A., I stay in his house. But
it's not what people think it is. We are NOT together. I swear on my
LIFE. We're NOT.'' She does acknowledge, however, that their romantic
history deepened their on screen dynamic. ''It's really art imitating
life,'' she muses. ''Only without the happy ending in our case. But
we have another kind of happy ending, which is that we have a
friendship. I love his family, even more than I love him. So that's a
good thing.''

That friendship seemed to have made it easy for the couple to reteam
in ''Bounce,'' and to back each other up when they weren't happy
about one detail: the movie's original release date. Miramax had
planned to send ''Bounce'' into theaters on July 7, the weekend
following the releases of blockbusters ''The Patriot'' and ''The
Perfect Storm.'' ''I'm too dumb to know what that meant,'' says
director Don Roos (''The Opposite of Sex''). ''I told Ben and
Gwyneth, 'And the good news is it'll be out in the summer!' And they
went white. They were like, 'Are you serious?' They said, 'Finish
your meal. We'll take care of this.'''

In addition to airing his beef with the powers that be, Affleck
posted a March 12 rant against the release date on his website,
which read in part, ''It appears that the burgeoning enthusiasm for
the 'commercial' prospects for 'Bounce' have grabbed the hearts and
minds of the folks at Miramax, grabbed the better part of valor by
the throat and throttled him within an inch of his life.''

Miramax wasn't amused. ''They were like, 'Listen! Take that thing
off your website, we're not going to release it in the summer!'''
says Affleck. (''He can express his opinion,'' Miramax production
copresident Meryl Poster says of his tactics, ''but he doesn't
need to express it to the whole world.'') And voila ?''Bounce''
was moved to the fall.

For more about the making of ''Bounce'' and the relationship
between its stars -- read the cover story in the Nov. 10 issue of
Entertainment Weekly.
(Posted:11/03/00)