In preparing for her ‘Country Strong’ role as a recovering alcoholic attempting a show-business comeback, Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow says she had so much difficulty understanding the mentality of substance abusers, she turned to her friend and ‘Iron Man’ co-star Robert Downey Jr. to help her get a handle on her character.

And it sounds like his expertise was her secret weapon in mastering the role.

Paltrow, 38, explained to Reuters, “I just couldn’t understand how you could be so drunk that you could wreck people’s lives and then wake up the next day and pretend everything was fine…. I struggled with that.”

So she consulted her now-sober A-list friend, whose own stellar show-business comeback followed years of drug abuse and prison time. “I asked Robert, ‘How does this work?’ He was really articulate about addiction and the psychology behind it. He really helped me a lot.”
In ‘Country Strong,’ Paltrow’s character, Kelly, isn’t just fighting for her sobriety: She’s avoiding ‘has-been’ status by attempting a post-rehab singing comeback, which means touring with an easy-on-the-eyes rising star (played by Leighton Meester). As a result, Paltrow found an angle to her role that she related to with ease.

“I loved playing a woman who was feeling her age, and worried about the young twenty-something coming up and stealing her thunder,” said the star, who is raising two children with her husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.

Training musically for the role was its own unique challenge. “I could always sing a bit, and I have good pitch,” she says. “But my singing teacher really kicked my butt. She was like, ‘There’s a big voice in there, we’re gonna get it out!”