Gwyneth Paltrow Realized She "Didn't Love Acting That Much" After This Major Achievement
She was only 26.
Sometimes, it's easy to forget that Gwyneth Paltrow is an actor and not a candle purveyor, a lifestyle guru, and the person who introduced the entire world to "conscious uncoupling." During an appearance on SiriusXM’s Quarantined with Bruce, Paltrow said that she knows the exact moment that she was over being an actor — and it was a major milestone for just about anyone in the industry. She'd just nabbed an Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love back in 1999 when she felt like she didn't "love acting that much as it turns out."
"I sort of felt like, well, now who am I supposed to be?" she said. "Like, what am I, what am I driving towards?"
Paltrow added that "part of the shine of acting wore off" because she was subjected to the "intense public scrutiny" that came with being a young actor in Hollywood. She said that all the attention just wasn't who she was. Instead, she just wanted to stay home.
"Being a kid who's like living every breakup on every headline, like being criticized for everything you do say and wear," Paltrow said. "And also, it's so transitory, you're always all over. It's hard to plant roots. Like I'm such a homebody, you know me, I like to be with my old friends and cook and squeeze my kids. Like I don't want to be alone in a hotel room in Budapest for six weeks. Like, it's just not who I am."
Paltrow also mentioned working with Havey Weinstein as part of what dulled the experience of being a star. While he was the head of Miramax, she worked with him on both Shakespeare in Love and Emma.
"If you compound those things with the fact that like, you know, to be totally candid, I had a really rough boss for most of my movie career at Miramax," she said Weinstein. "Like, so you take all those things [and] you're like, 'I don't know if this is really my calling.'"
Earlier this year, Paltrow told Harper's Bazaar that she's certain about "literally never — nev-er" feel a passion for acting again.
“When I was acting I really burned myself out," she said. "When the flywheel kicked in, I was doing three to five movies a year. I really got to the point where even the little things, like sitting in the van going to set, getting your makeup touch-ups, and everything — I really don't know that I can bear it.”