Gwyneth Paltrow is one of the most famous names out there, from her award-worthy roles, her part in some of the best Marvel movies, and being the founder of Goop. With that status has come some backlash over the years. But, what does she think about why she’s become a polarizing figure?
Since Paltrow is on the ongoing press tour for Marty Supreme, which is officially a major contender in awards season, she was asked exactly that. Here’s what she had to say:
I sort of love what Robert [Downey Jr.] said at the Hollywood Reporter thing, you know, around this idea of polarizing women and that really, to describe women that are powerful and talented, you know, that people can’t quite get their heads around.
Gwyneth Paltrow is undeniably powerful and talented. The 53-year-old has built an incredible acting career that includes classics like Se7en, The Royal Tenenbaums and Iron Man, and one could argue she’s just made another great movie with Marty Supreme, for which she came out of acting retirement. As Paltrow started in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she thinks that perhaps calling a woman polarizing has become one in the same with those descriptors. As she added:
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 maybe a gentler way to get divorced, which was very ridiculed at the time, which is, like now fully come full circle. And I have people literally stopping me in the street with tears in their eyes to thank me.
Paltrow particularly received a lot of attention for her use of the phrase “consciously uncoupling” when she and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin announced they were separating after a decade of marriage. As she explained, even though she received some flack for using that term (recently recalling even once getting fired from a movie because of it), she’s also thanked all the time for making that move. Paltrow attempted to explain why she’s picked on further with these words:
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.
Gwyneth Paltrow is the daughter of the actress Blythe Danner and producer/director Bruce Paltrow. Because many would consider her a nepo baby, she thinks it’s easy to make fun and say she doesn’t deserve her success, but as she pointed out as well, her parents were “self made” and “killed themselves to get where they got.” Once, she actually said having a famous mom made her career more difficult because she felt like she had to work “twice as hard and be twice as good.”
When it comes to Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow also explained that her decision to make the brand comes “a true and authentic place of really wanting to better women’s lives”. She cited things like making “non-toxic” products and her company producing “healthy” food as proof of that. As she also said:
My intention is to add positivity and connect to things that will be good for [people]. And so, it’s interesting now to see it all come full circle. 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.
It definitely seems like Gwyneth Paltrow has reflected on how she is perceived by the public, and why she can be seen as a polarizing figure over the years.