Gwyneth Paltrow - 'Marty Supreme'

24:29Close quote. So that's for him. But I guess Harvey had been at the Toronto Film Festival. And I don't know what exactly he had seen of yours, but he saw something. Flesh and Bone. It was. It was, yeah. So this was a few years before the movie came out. This was a few years before.

24:45Gwyneth Paltrow:Sure. So I had done Flesh and Bone and I was in Toronto doing a film called Moonlight and Valentino. I came out of an elevator and he said, hey, I saw you in Flesh and Bone. You're brilliant and you should come and work for Miramax. And then that sort of started my relationship with him and the team there, which was, you know. Donna Gelati, who then do Shakespeare in Love years later. Yes, and my brother's movie called The Good Night, another Doug movie. So I worked with her a number of times. I did a film called Possession with her. Oh, yeah. Yeah. People really responded to you. And Emma, the New York Times Review said, quote, Gwyneth Paltrow makes a resplendent Emma gliding through the film with an elegance and patrician wit that bring the young Katherine Hepburn to my close quote.

25:26Not a bad New York Times Review. And I guess pretty much on the basis of Emma, you were quickly in very high demand, which I think is the reason that five films of yours came out in 1998. That's bananas. Right? Between January, literally, with Great Expectations and December with Shakespeare in Love. And in between those, Hush in March, Sliding Doors in April, and the remake of Dial M for Murder, A Perfect Murder in June. Wow. But right before that year and something that would have affected that year, what actually happened with Titanic? Because you were apparently, James Cameron wanted you, right?

26:04I think I was in the running.

26:07Gwyneth Paltrow:I don't remember exactly what happened, but I couldn't do it or ultimately they didn't want me to do it or I don't remember exactly. Well, I mean, if you'd done that, maybe you wouldn't have been able to do Shakespeare in Love, so it works out. But just a quick thing on Great Expectations before Shakespeare in Love. So for Alfonso Cuaron, who directed that, he's basically suggests he's a little embarrassed by the – it didn't come out the way he wanted it. I think people on the set, maybe you as well, were saying, you know, he – it was just only a second time making a film for a Hollywood studio.

26:40First English film. First English film. Yeah. A little overwhelming for him. But just since this is early in the career of another director who went on to Amazing Things, just what do you remember about working with him on that one?

26:53Gwyneth Paltrow:I mean, I loved him. He was really engaged and also really knew what he wanted. And, you know, I was so surprised by all the green and the green costumes. And it was such an amazing cast with Anne Bancroft and De Niro and Ethan Hawke, who had already been a friend of mine for a couple of years in New York City. So I don't remember feeling the pressure that he felt from the studio, but I know they were very involved with all, you know, of the aspects. And I know it was like a relatively big budget for them for this kind of thing. You know, you can sort of feel that a bit, but also the studio didn't want me to be in it.

27:33Gwyneth Paltrow:They didn't think I was pretty enough to be in it. Yeah. So I got offered it and then it was like, well, there's an issue. Yeah, I remember the studio executive's name too, but I won't say it. All right, very diplomatic of you. But then I guess they convinced him. Jesus. All right. Well, later that year, aristocratic young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to be able to act in the theater in 16th century London and becomes the love, interest, and muse of William Shakespeare and inspires Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare in Love. I know that people have been trying to make that for years in various versions.

28:11I think Edward Zwick with Julia Roberts, which didn't happen, and other things. There's all kinds of claims about how you came to be in it. What is the truth of how you first heard about Shakespeare in Love?

28:22Gwyneth Paltrow:So I was actually the first person who was offered the movie, having been the quote-unquote first lady of Miramax. And I passed. I was nursing a terrible heartbreak. and I couldn't really focus on much and then they offered it to many many people everybody said no and then I was actually at Nobu in New York and a producer from who worked with Miramax a lot named Paul Webster came up to me and he was like why did you pass on Shakespeare in Love and I said I don't know I just I'm just a mess and I'm just coming out of this he's like you have to do that movie are you insane i'm gonna have them resend it to you tomorrow this is tom stoppard script tom stoppard script john madden the amazing amazing tom stoppard so i read the script and i thought are you insane you have to do this movie and so that was it then i went i went off to the races and john madden says that he first met you when you were 20 and auditioned for another of his films, Golden Gate.

29:26Do you remember that?

29:27Gwyneth Paltrow:Yes. Oh my God. You just broke that memory for me. I forgot about that. He said, I'd met Gwyneth Paltrow when she was auditioning for another film and it was obvious she had the qualities needed for our Shakespeare's love interests. Close quote. But even in your own camp, one of your own agents was saying, don't do this. One of them said, you know, I feel like it's kind of more of the guy's part. But once I re-read it, I was fully in. Like nobody could have convinced me otherwise. It's a perfect screenplay. It really is. It really is. Incidentally, Emma, Sliding Door, Shakespeare in Love. Why do you think everybody was coming to you for English accented parts?

30:05What was that about?

30:07Gwyneth Paltrow:I don't know. I think after Emma, I mean, you know, when I went to go do it, the British press was in a fury. Why are they casting this American girl to play our beloved Austin heroine? And then when it came out, they were very happy with my accent. And then I sort of got adopted. Yes. And then, of course, became an expat and lived there for a long time. But I think probably because I reasonably pulled off the accent. Yeah, totally. And in fact, Joseph Fiennes, quote, Gwyneth was very well prepared. Her accent seemed flawless from day one, close quote. And New York Times review of that film when it came out at the end of that year, quote, this could be Gwyneth Paltrow in her Her first fully realized starring performance makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light, close quote.

30:56But did you have to see the finished film or hear things like that to believe that this was really something as special as it turned out to be and the way it was, you were recognized and the film was recognized? Or did you kind of feel that while you were even making it?

31:12Gwyneth Paltrow:When we were making it, it felt special. It had a magical quality to it. everything coalesced in this beautiful way. And it almost felt like we were all kind of floating. We were inside this kind of magical sphere. And it just kept unfolding. And it just it felt really good. And I worked so hard on that film and on that part. And actually, I was talking about this last night, how when I first saw the film, I actually felt disappointed because in my performance, because I felt I had worked so hard. It's like I expected it not to be me in a way. And I was so disappointed that after all that, it was just me, you know?

31:55Gwyneth Paltrow:And I actually remember saying that to Matt Damon, who had the same experience then when he saw Ripley. Yes. He was like, I remember you saying that about Shakespeare, and that's how I feel, you know? Well, not too many people agreed with you because in terms of not being pleased with it, because it came out end of 98 and for like whatever the next three or four months your life was all award season. Yes, it was. And, you know, later on I'm going to ask you to compare and contrast what it was like 27 years ago versus today. But, you know, generally though speaking about that time, we'll come to what it's like now.

32:35But that's now looked back at as a landmark award season, just a great film that may well have flourished on its own But also there was this very savvy and aggressive Merrimack's campaign, which I know he apparently from what I remember hearing or reading or something, he really leaned on you to do a lot to the point where you were like at the breaking point. So what do you remember about that award season? It was full on.

33:00Gwyneth Paltrow:I mean, you know, it's interesting because, of course, looking back, there was a lot of strategy around the monetization of art through awards. awards. And of course, like that, how that impacted Miramax's bottom line. And I think they understood very early the impact. It wasn't only for prestige, you know, it was like, then you could sell it and blah, blah, blah, and box office and all of that. So I think it was twofold. I think Miramax really wanted the acclaim. They loved being that studio that made the great movies. and they were like the upstart from New York City and it had a lot of that energy behind it.

33:51Gwyneth Paltrow:And then it also was incredibly profitable and they understood that very well. So they just used to run us ragged, not only on Shakespeare in Love, but on Ripley and all of them. I mean, we all were at the opening of Walmarts. We were everywhere. It was crazy. It was very intense and it was very relentless. And I think they actually created the rubric for how these things are campaigned for, which continues to be insane. Totally. But it did culminate with March 21st, 1999, the Oscars that night. You were 26. What was your expectation going into the night for yourself and for the film? And then what were your reactions to those outcomes which were announced by just a couple of nobodies in town, Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford?

34:45Gwyneth Paltrow:Wow. Well, leading up to it was totally surreal. Everybody kept telling me, you're going to win, you're going to win, because I had won those telltale. Gloves. You know, all those things. I was like, there's no way I'm winning this. This is crazy. And my dad was sick and very diminished. My grandfather was very sick, but had flown out for it. it was very charged emotionally kind of in a lot of different respects and um i just remember that moment and just feeling like this cannot be happening this cannot be real best actress yeah and hearing jack nicholson actually my ex-husband when i turned 40 made this you know birthday video for me that's like a long poem and part of it is jack Nicholson, you know, saying that.

35:40Gwyneth Paltrow:And so it's like, I'm like, I can't believe that happened to me. Like, I can't, I can't believe it. I don't remember anything after that. It was like, it's like truly a blur. I don't know what I said. And then the next thing I remember is, is walking off and, and Steven was, Spielberg was in the wings and I just collapsed into his arms and I just cried. It was like so incredibly overwhelming. And then it was overwhelming for a good long while. Like it was really, it was a lot, you know, I was only 26. And it's a lot of energy and, and, you know, opinions and newspapers and, you know, paparazzi following you then for decades, like it just was it kicked off something very intense.

36:30Just to follow up one thing there. So not that much later in the night is when the film won. And that, again, not because it wasn't a great film, but just because I think when Saving Private Ryan had come out earlier in the year, everybody was like, just mail Steve in the Oscars. Like, what do you remember of the announcement of Best Picture?

36:51Gwyneth Paltrow:I mean, we were shocked. You know, we really were just because I think because Saving Private Ryan is like such a magnificent, you know, technical marvel. And, you know, and Stephen obviously won Best Director, which makes complete sense. And it was really, you know, I think we thought that Saving Private Ryan was going to win. But, you know, I think what people underestimated is Shakespeare in Love is a love letter to the craft. It's all about the struggle of what we do and the beauty of what we do from the sound people to the, you know, jokes like the rowboat guy passing a screen, you know, a play to like, oh, you're a writer, let me give you my spec, you know.

37:42Gwyneth Paltrow:So I think the town was so charmed by Tom Stoppard's perfect, again, screenplay. And the execution was beautiful. And I think it made people feel really good. And it was a love letter. So at the end of the day, that's what they went with. Now, you kind of alluded to this a moment ago, but figuring out how to follow an Oscar has been something that all people, but particularly I've noticed with actresses over the years going almost a century, you know, it becomes a dilemma. Like, what do you do next? How do you, you know, do you go, do you double down on the thing that got you there? Do you move in a totally different direction?

38:21Do you take some time off? Do you, I mean, you could say better than me what goes through somebody's mind in that situation. But what, I mean, I think for you, you already must have had Ripley going. Had that already been shot, the Talented Mr. Ripley?

38:34Gwyneth Paltrow:We had already shot it, yeah. And that, so again, for Miramax and for Anthony Minghella and then some of these other, I mean, just to remind folks, you're the fiance of the playboy, Dickie, played by Jude Law, and the skeptic of Tom Ripley, played by Matt Damon, I guess. So that was already, it's helpful probably to have something good, really good done. Yeah, really good. Yeah, yeah. But just what else do you remember about that moment of like, what do I do next? I mean, have you ever had so much adrenaline in your body that you feel like you're broken? Like that's what it felt like for like three months.

39:11Gwyneth Paltrow:Like I could not, I almost couldn't feel myself. You know, basically the first thing I did was go back to Williamstown. That's right. And do as you like it. I needed to like feel myself again. And I needed to reconnect with the reason that I did this in the first place. It had gotten so away from me and it was so healing. It was such a good choice. I'm so glad I did that because it really put me back together. People, and it's imposed by everybody else. Like, what are you going to do? And can you top it? And, you know, what direction are you going to take? And you're just like, I'm just like a kid over here trying to figure out, you know, it's like, it becomes very almost paralyzing.

39:53Gwyneth Paltrow:I don't know. If I could go back in time and give myself advice, I'd be like, do whatever the fuck is right for you. Like who – it doesn't matter what anybody thinks. Like cast off everybody's expectations and do what's right for you. And that's what I would have done in hindsight. Well, so Ripley comes out the year after Shakespeare in Love but the year of it winning at the Oscars and you winning. Why did actors so love working with Minghella? It's like everybody that's done it seems to rave about it. What was it? He loved actors. He loved performance. He was just a very gentle spirit, you know, and he, like, you really felt brought into the bosom of his thing and his family.

40:40Gwyneth Paltrow:And it just was like a very, very warm feeling, a very warm experience. So that was 99. In 2001, just to show a bit of how the range, there's for the Farrelly brothers, Shallow Hal, in November of 2001. And then in December, your best work. Hey, you know what? I actually look back. It's like, I understand today people would try to cancel whoever did that. But the reality is it's a good performance, I think. All right. And then the next month, though, the Royal Tenenbaums for Wes Anderson. You don't get a lot more different than those two. Right. This was for him after Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, his first movie with a real budget and a proper release.

41:26What was he like to work with? because I feel like for him, and this is obviously not a criticism, but actors are just one of the many pieces of things that he's kind of using in the visual, just the unique way he makes his movies. Do you remember it feeling like a different kind of way of working than other movies?

41:47Gwyneth Paltrow:It did feel different. It was really the movie where I feel that he fully established and fleshed out his style, like this genre that he created. Yeah. And I totally got it. Like I knew what he was doing and I was there for it. Like I was like, this is cool. Some people didn't get it so much on the set or one person, I guess, in particular kind of didn't get it. Daddy. Yeah. I think he came around to getting it, of course. But, you know, because it felt peculiar. It felt quirky. And it was a very new tone. So I loved it. I loved being told, because normally when you're doing costume fittings, for example, it's a bit of a collaboration.

42:38Gwyneth Paltrow:No, not here. And I loved it. It was like, you will be wearing this, and this will be your eyeliner, et cetera. So I felt like we are doing something cool. Like, I don't know if people are going to get it, but this is kind of awesome. It was almost like there was like a gory element to it, you know, like there was like this hyper or like Richard Scarry, you know, there was like, or like from the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil Lee Frank Waller. You know what I'm trying to say? It's sort of like, I was like, oh, he's kind of taking that thing and making it into a thing. Like, I think this is going to be cool.

43:12And it was. Next year, a cameo as Dixie Normas in Austin Powers and Goldmember. and then though I know the you know the rest of 2022 was not as fun October you lost your father yes who had been not well even a few years earlier with the Oscars but just as a I don't know that I realized this until I started prepping for this but it was three weeks later that you just you had already had tickets to go see Coldplay. Yeah. And you go and things, you know, so that marriage came out of that, right? And also just didn't know this either. Based on that early moment in time where you were still very much grieving, that's where the song Fix You is from.

44:04Gwyneth Paltrow:Yeah. That's unbelievable. Oh, yeah. So it was also in that immediate aftermath of that loss that you, I believe, go and shoot something that you must have signed up for before that, which was Sylvia. And your mom, again, is your mom. Yep. At the time, at least, I think, or around that time, maybe not long after, you said that, this is Sylvia Plath you're playing, just so people, if they don't know, you'd said it was your favorite film that you'd done, at least up to that point. So given that it was such a not great time personally, what was it that made that film let that? Well, it kind of saved my life.

44:43Gwyneth Paltrow:I mean, I'm a person who I think it's why I tend to be drawn to really complicated women, to playing really complicated women who have a lot that they're reckoning with, because it's really the way that I process through things. It's the way that I access the darker parts of myself that I don't like that much and let them come up and out. I unearth things that way, which is probably why I'm such a bitch when I'm not acting. I'm just kidding. But I really use it as a tool to kind of metabolize and get stuff out. And so it was such a blessing having to get up every day and have somewhere to go because I felt like I was going to die of grief.

45:29I mean, there was one night where I woke up and I thought I was having a heart attack in London.

45:36Gwyneth Paltrow:And the only reason I didn't call the ambulance is because I didn't know that it's 999 and not 911. I was so wracked with grief. And just so to have the structure of the day, to have somewhere to get up and go. And all day long, I was just mining it and letting it out and letting it out and listening to Segar Ross and sobbing and letting it out. And it really saved me. And I think I love the movie because I love working with Christine Jeffs, who is an amazing female filmmaker, obviously from New Zealand, who was just so good to me and supportive and I think brought a lot out of me. I just think it's, you know, and I loved working with Daniel Craig, who played Ted Hughes.

46:23Gwyneth Paltrow:And it's a really beautiful movie. I know why it's not a blockbuster. It's pretty depressing. I remember it being very, very impressive. But it was, I thought so. Yeah. Now, is it a coincidence then? You're talking about using your characters to work through what you're personally going through. Would it be a coincidence then that you choose to do on stage and then screen, getting back with John Madden, proof which is about a daughter haunted sort of by the loss of her father? Yeah. Except I did those right before he died. You did the play before? I did the play before. Okay. And then I did the film afterwards.

47:01Gwyneth Paltrow:Okay. So, but he was sick when I did the play. I was already kind of, yes, to your point, in that space of reckoning with it, even though I was totally in denial that he would die. Really? Sorry. No, go ahead. No, just going to say another really, really good performance that I don't know. Thank you. The movie was, I don't know how commercially successful, but it really, people should go back and watch it. Thank you. It wasn't that successful. But I think the father-daughter, that particular dynamic is kind of largely unexplored in cinema. Like we don't see – in television, we don't see a lot of that.

47:37Gwyneth Paltrow:And it's a very powerful, beautiful, seminal dynamic. And I love doing proof because this young woman is so tied into her father and has him so on a pedestal and loves him so much. and then becomes his caregiver. So there was a lot. It was very bizarre how the reflections of my real life. And I had done a film with my father right after he had had surgery and radiation. And I was on set as his caregiver too with my mom and brother. So I had participated in my own version of that when I had done the play. And then, of course, he died before I did the film, which brought, I think, another truth to the performance.

48:31Just another example of directors at the beginning of their careers, Ryan Murphy running with Scissors, 2006. And that has reverberations. But then, OK, so this is one we got to just ask you about because it ended up being seven films for you. But I think it almost was not going to be any films because I don't know if you were immediately sold on doing this. but Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's executive assistant, turned partner, turned wife, turned co-Avenger, turned widow, turned whatever. I think people don't necessarily remember that the Iron Man, the first Iron Man in 2008 was the first of the whole MCU, and that it was far from a given that it would become what it became.

49:10What did you think you were signing up for?

49:12Gwyneth Paltrow:God, I just flashed when you said that on Jon Favreau texting me, you know, on my BlackBerry in London back in the day. Like, now it's at 90 million. Now it's at 110 million. Now it's at... And I was like, what? Like, our weird little thing? Like, nobody thought it was going to amount to much. I definitely had to be convinced to do it. Like, I didn't feel like it was a natural fit. But I had been friends with Jon Fav for a long time. And I had known Robert. And I don't know, they just convinced me. And I thought, like, they're both so talented. it's totally undeniable and i was like this could actually be really fun and i went back to california and live with my mom and my kids like we all bunked in with my mom in santa monica and it was a really great shoot and we it didn't feel like an action movie to me i you know of course at the end there's some a bit of running for me or whatever but really it was like a two hander with me and Robert and John just being a genius and hilarious.

50:18Gwyneth Paltrow:And so it didn't feel like we were making some, yeah, with like IP driven thing. You know, it was like, we're just kind of messing around in this garage and El Segundo. And your stuff with Robert is just great screwball comedy in there as well. And that was around the time, even though, you know, you would periodically between 2008 and 2019, come and do those. But for the most part, you are not acting anymore. Also starting in 2008, around 2008, aside from that's the year Iron Man comes out, but that's also the year the first Goop newsletter goes out. Just like free email, I guess. Company wasn't incorporated for five more years.

51:01What the fuck were you doing? No. Well, what did you hope or imagine at that time when you sent that first newsletter that this would be? And did you expect, were you kind of looking for something that would in some way supplant acting? Or is that just what happened?

51:20Gwyneth Paltrow:It's a really good question because I kind of don't know. I know that I was taking a break and saying no to things and not pursuing anything. I really wanted to be home with my kids. I think I was dealing with the grief of my father by being with my children. I could afford to take a break, which a lot of mothers cannot. And yet I also had this thing inside of me, this entrepreneurial thing, which by the way, is the same thing as being an actor or any kind of art. We are two sides of one coin. Like that thing that you're born with, like I have to create, I have to put this into the world. It's the same whether you're designing software or whether you want to release an album.

52:13Gwyneth Paltrow:So that thing lives in you and you can exercise it or not exercise it. But this thing just sort of started to gestate. Like I have this deep passion for connecting interesting, amazing women to interesting, amazing things. And I have a deep passion for trying to share information to improve lives. And so I had been actually tinkering around with this since like 2002 and getting advice and talking to people. I'm like, I want to do something on this internet thing where I can have a database of great stuff. And because I've been so lucky in my life, I've lived all over. Like, I know where all the great places are.

52:55Gwyneth Paltrow:And like, I want to have like something that I can trust and that people who know me can trust. And also though, just to your point, sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead. 2002 was the year you lost your debt. That's right. So that maybe isn't a coincidence. Yeah, that's actually true. That's a great point. Right. So 2008 was the year that I got the guts to send the first newsletter. And I didn't have, it's like I did and I didn't. Like I had, of course, no idea what I was doing. I would have had no idea how to turn it into a business. In fact, even when it grew to have a very big following, I had no idea how to monetize it.

53:33Gwyneth Paltrow:I knew that I like had aspirations of making product, You know, because I remember being young and on the red carpet thinking, man, all these brands are leveraging all of us girls to scale their own businesses. Like, we should think about how to do this for ourselves. Right, right. This is like in the 90s, you know. I don't know. It's a very slow, very iterative process. First monetized with kind of like a media model and then into multi-brand product. And I also had trepidation around the idea of selling things and monetizing it in that way because I didn't want it to become transactional. But I did understand that my curation was a service.

54:12Gwyneth Paltrow:And so, you know, it just it all started from that. I guess another parallel between being an actress and being the founder of Goop is that you have to have thick skin because people have everybody's got an opinion. what I wonder is obviously and we should stipulate first of all that while some of these people's opinions are critical there are a lot of people who really love you and what you're doing with this but I wonder if you have any theories of why people pick on you sometimes like I mean I'll just mention a few that I've heard and you can tell me if you think they're legit first of all and this is completely not legit But like this idea that you're an actress, how dare you step out of your land?

54:59You should be content to, you know, right? Now that's ridiculous, but I've seen that one. I guess timing that...

55:06Gwyneth Paltrow:I think Martha Stewart was the one that's... Yeah, yeah. Oh, did she? Oh, Jesus. Oh, well then, okay. No, I love her, but still. Interesting. Well, it also started, this aspirational thing started at the outset of the Great Recession. So there were, that provoked some people. Yep. The whole, of course. Even though I wasn't selling anything. No, no, no. Right, for a few. Yeah. 2014, the Conscious Uncoupling newsletter, of course. And then, you know, then there, I guess, some of the people that didn't, that felt there, you know, is it some of the things, are they grounded in science or whatever?

55:43Yeah. So, like, these are some of them. What is your theory of why you, to some degree, can be polarizing for some people?

55:51Gwyneth Paltrow:Yeah. Yeah. I sort of love what Robert said at the Hollywood Report thing, you know, around like this idea of polarizing women. And that really that's just like to describe women that are powerful and talented, you know, that people can't quite get their heads around. But I think that, again, going back to the seeing around corners thing, like I introduced a lot of very new ideas into the culture. And some of them were not science backed at the time and became science backed. Some of them were about, you know, maybe a gentler way to get divorced, which was very ridiculed at the time, which is like now fully come full circle.

56:27Gwyneth Paltrow:And I have people literally stopping me in the street with tears in their eyes to thank me. And I do think some of it was I was born to privilege. I went to a private school. I grew up on the Upper East Side. There are a lot of things that already rub people the wrong way, which I understand. I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything about who I was born to or the circumstances I was born to. So there's that. And I think the idea that this is a bit much now. She was already born with this perceived silver spoon, even though my parents were self-made and killed themselves to get where they got.

57:03And that then I had a lot of success as an actress.

57:06Gwyneth Paltrow:And then how dare I try to be an entrepreneur? And I do understand it. And I understand the key objections that exist from a marketing standpoint, but if this comes from such a true and authentic place of really wanting to better women's lives, and I think that's true, you know, we make incredible, for example, non-toxic, efficacious beauty products, which, you know, can be so harmful to women. We make amazing food that everybody can, you know, healthy food that tastes delicious. Like my intention is to add positivity and like connect people to things that will be good for them. And so it's interesting now to see it all come full circle.

57:46Gwyneth Paltrow:It's interesting for me to see how often I ended up being right, which is there's me with my martini, you know, with Paul Thomas Anderson looking back. Well, no, it's all interesting. But the thing that maybe disappointed people the most since 2008 when you started Goop is that there was not a lot of acting anymore. There were the Marvel things. There were appearances on Glee, which one of them got a guest appearance, but got an Emmy for that. Country Strong did it well enough that you get a record deal and perform on the Oscars. But again, just kind of a one-off contagion, unfortunately, pretty prescient Steven Soderbergh movie.

58:28Gwyneth Paltrow:Four Days of Work. Four Days of Work. Yeah, this is just popping in and out a little bit. The politician with, I believe your husband was involved. But then Marty Supreme comes along. And why was this the one of all the things that I'm sure over the years, you know, people didn't forget that you were a great actress. Why was this the one that you decided to come back for? You know, it was really like this confluence of events, which I think, again, because of how much I miss my father and how much grief I had around my separation with him. I didn't want to miss that much of my kid's childhood.

59:05Gwyneth Paltrow:and unfortunately with movies like I remember doing country strong because I really love the part and I love Shauna and I was like this is fun I love country music but I remember missing bath time I remember leaving the house before they woke up and coming home after they were asleep and it was I know I was projecting a lot onto that because of my own grief but I really wanted to not miss a lot of stuff and then all those little jerks left the house you know and went to college and I I was kind of staring down the barrel of this new life that I didn't know what would look like and where I wanted to live.

59:43Gwyneth Paltrow:And I wanted to get out of Los Angeles. And it just so happened that Josh called me and I didn't know who he was. I had never seen Timothee Chalamet in a movie. I was really like, I'm telling you, I was like living under a rock somewhere. I could probably tell you who like the CFO of, you know, Microsoft was at the time, but had no idea who these guys were. And then my brother, who's a filmmaker, was like, no, you don't understand. Like, this guy is the real deal. You are doing this. I don't care what else you're doing. Like, you are doing this. And so I found myself saying yes and being in New York City.

1:00:23Gwyneth Paltrow:And I'm so glad that I did it because I think it's a fucking great movie. It's a great movie and a cool part, this woman who gave up her career as an actress to become the wife of wealthy men and has developed an interest maybe for reasons I'll leave to you to save, but like in this younger guy who still has the passion and fire that she once had. Yes. Is that what she sees in him? I think she sees the worst version of herself in him and the most exciting version of herself in him. and I think they recognize the hustler and the other. And I loved the part. I loved when we first see her, this cold sort of shell of a person that we see walk through the Ritz Hotel in London.

1:01:15Gwyneth Paltrow:And I loved sort of charting out where her girlishness starts to come back and where the fire starts to come back and the mess. I loved her total lack of risk of aversion. I loved her like weird 180 that she's like a socialite in New York and then this boy inspires her. I think he also because, you know, in the plot point that she's lost her son, who's probably would have been around the same age, that there's something healing for her in being physically close to this boy. And I just thought it was so complicated and weird. And that tragic moment, you know, where she's, to me, it's tragic where she's on the stage facing the audiences to her back.

1:02:01Gwyneth Paltrow:And she makes her entrance and they all erupt in applause. And you see like this relief at the outside validation. Like it's so awful. With regard to that scene, is it correct that I think the way I heard they mapped it out, It was your first time acting in a while. And so your first scene as her was her first scene coming back to acting. All the stage stuff was my very first days. Yes. My first day day was when we were rehearsing the play, which was very fortuitous because I was blocking. It was all so uncertain. And where are we standing? so it all just worked so well because I was like, do I still know what I'm doing?

1:02:47Really? You really doubted it?

1:02:48Gwyneth Paltrow:Yes, I really doubted it. It was crazy. But that moment to me was so poignant, and it's such a, like, it's so vulnerable, and then it's so upsetting what happens to her. I guess when we last see her in her bedroom, is that right? That's it. Yeah, that's another crazy, powerful scene. Anyway, with our last minute, just a rapid fire if I can. Since Marty Supreme, have you been getting a lot of outreach for other acting jobs? And do you intend to continue acting? A few and maybe. Okay. All right. What is the future of Goop? Are you going to stick with it or sell it or what? I'm having the best time doing it.

1:03:27Gwyneth Paltrow:I would love maybe to have somebody come and do the job, the parts of the job that I'm less good at. And maybe free me up a little more if I wanted to do another film or something like that. But we'll see. I really love my team and my job. I love what we're doing right now. We're in such an amazing creative moment. So trying to figure out how potentially I could do both. What strikes you now that you're back in the kind of front rows of the business again of Hollywood? What strikes you as the things that in the business that are most different today from when you were starting out? The business model.

1:04:06Gwyneth Paltrow:it's really we're in the process of like the throes of massive change obviously to state the I mean captain obvious over here but you know I think the thing about Marty Supreme and a lot of movies this year like it's a really good year for movies I think it's amazing because the business model has shifted to a different model and what we do so well in America is make culture and export culture. And we need as a culture, we need real art in order to be who we are as America. I worry that decisions made by algorithm severely undermine our role in the world in terms of the culture that we make and have always made and to inspire ourselves and the rest of the world.

1:04:58Gwyneth Paltrow:So I feel very heartened that these movies have are still coming out and seem to be, you know, there seems to be a lot of momentum behind them. But it's very different. Because in my day, when a movie came out that had buzz, it did well at the box office. And now it's you don't know, you know, it can have 97 on Rotten Tomatoes, and people just wait till it comes on TV. There's so much more out there, so many more ways to consume it. Right. So I'm hoping that this business model still works. Do you think, and I ask this question because I'm literally at the moment teaching a class at Chapman University once a week where it's about the movie star.

1:05:40And we look from the beginning to the present at how it's evolved and case studies and whatever. And looking at basically the kids' final paper is the Tom Cruise generation. Is that the last – are they the last real movie stars? Or can movie stars still be made in the way that they emerged from the 90s like yourself? Can they? Well, that's what I'm asking. Well, I'm asking you. You go first. Okay. Okay.

1:06:05Gwyneth Paltrow:Not unless the business model works such that movies are made and shown in the theater. That's my belief. I think that's a big part of it. But also, you know, it's hard. I would imagine now where everybody's on social media, there's no mystery anymore. Well, that was the other thing I was going to say. When I grew up, it was mystery was a part of it. It was kind of everything. And now you can't market anything if you're not on social media. And that's all about access. So that's very different as well. Last one. And you might have teased that something like this may be actually happening. But if one of your kids came to you and said, as you said to your parents, that they want to pursue acting as a career, would you respond to them in the same way that your parents did or would you?

1:06:55Gwyneth Paltrow:I'm very encouraging. Like I think the world needs artists more than ever. And I think it's harder and even riskier than probably when I was a kid and that the psychological ramifications are more grave considering this access we're talking about on social media, et cetera. But I do think that it's a very worthwhile career and a good antidote to all the machinization that's happening in all other areas. And so I'll be supportive. They might have to live with me, you know, but I'll be supportive. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. That was fun. I enjoyed it.

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