Articles
Duet on screen, not off
(The Calgary Sun / 25 September 2000)
By Louis B. Hobson
Canadian actor Scott Speedman had a bit of an identity crisis when he returned to Toronto earlier this month to help promote Duets at the Toronto International Film Festival.
People kept mistaking him for Ben Affleck.
It was sort of an honest mistake.
Speedman's Duets co-star is Gwyneth Paltrow, Affleck's on-again/off-again girlfriend, and Affleck had popped into Toronto for the film's premier.
A year ago, when Speedman was filming Duets in Vancouver, there were rumours he was dating Paltrow. The theory was he'd replaced Brad Pitt in the film - and in Paltrow's heart. Duets was created by Paltrow's father Bruce Paltrow for his daughter and her then-fiancé Pitt.
"Gwyneth and I were only ever friends," says Speedman. "It was on my first day of shooting that Gwyneth was nominated for her Oscar [for Shakespeare in Love]. After that, anywhere she went and everything she did was put under scrutiny."
When they were sighted in public, it was immediately assumed Speedman and Paltrow were a couple.
Speedman is dating his Felicity co-star Keri Russell. "We don't want to be known as a celebrity couple so we don't go anywhere together that would invite that kind of media attention."