Gwyneth Paltrow Biography

• Birth Name

  Gwyneth Paltrow

• Birth Date

  09/27/1972

• Birthplace

  Los Angeles, California

• Credits

  24 Movies, 2 TV appearances, 8 awards
  View All

• Family

  Husband: Chris Martin
  

  dating as of November 2002; engaged as of Fall 2003; married in a very small, private ceremony in a California hotel suite on December 5, 2003; expecting their second child together

  Brother: Jake Paltrow
  

  born on September 26, 1975

  Cousin: Hillary Danner
  

• Hookups

  Companion: Aaron Eckhart
  b. 1968; met while filming "Possesion"; dated briefly in 2002

  Companion: Ben Affleck
  began dating as of December 1997; both appeared in "Shakespeare in Love"; reportedly separated in December 1998; co-starred together in "Bounce" (2000), fueling speculation they had reconciled

  Companion: Brad Pitt
  

  met in 1994 on set of "Seven" in which they played a married couple; became engaged in November 1996; separated in June 1997

  

  Companion: Donovan Leitch
  briefly engaged in the early 1990s; no longer together

  Companion: James Purefoy
  b. 1964; dated briefly in 2002

  Companion: Luke Wilson
  began dating as of spring 2001; met during filming of "The Royal Tenenbaums"; no longer together

  Companion: Robert Sean Leonard
  no longer together

• Notes

  "All the movies I've done have been so wildly eclectic," she says, "even if the

  y've been failures. I'm not a box office star. I'm not drawn to the kind of movies that turn you into a person who gets $20 million a picture. I don't think there's pressure on me that

  way to deliver. I just feel like directors put me in films because they want what I

  can give them as an artist."---Paltrow to Entertainment Weekly, September 17, 2004.
  

  "Everything I wanted to achieve, I achieved," she says. "I'm not one of those people who keeps raising the bar. Am I supposed to say I'm going to become the biggest mov

  ie star that ever lived? I don't want to."---Paltrow to Time, September 5, 2005.
  "Fame sucks. I know that might sound negative. People will say 'Well, why does she want to be in movies and date famous guys if she doesn't like it?' The truth is that I'm just this young girl trying to do good work and have some fun. That girl in those stories seems like another person. I know two things about myself: I have a good work ethic and I love my family. That's about all I need to know."---Paltrow to the Daily News, January 31, 1999.
  

  "Gwyneth isn't afraid to do anything ... She is totally not afraid to be unglamo

  rous or despicable or sad or funny or stupid."---"Hard Eight" director Paul Thomas Anderson quoted in The New York Times, July 28, 1996.
  "Gwyneth really has a gift for understanding the quiet, unblinking nature of the camera. Furthermore, she's respectful of that gift. Despite how big she is she never rests on

  her laurels, and she continues to pick interesting, challenging work. God, I should be her publicist!"---"Possession" director Neil LaBute on Paltrow to Talk, December 2001-January 2002.
  

  "I always hear that people's perception of me is that I'm cool or aloof or standoffish and I always think, 'Who are they talking about?' That's totally opposite to me. I used to be far more open, but obviously the life that I live and the level of scrutiny make me
  

  

  kind of slower to really open myself up. But I still don't think I'm a chilly person at all."---Paltrow to The Daily Telegraph, November 10, 2000.
  "I didn't think I was going to live," she says. "It was the weirdest feeling. I was just really surprised that I kept waking up."---Paltrow talking about the passing of her father Entertainment Weekly November 28, 2003.
  "I don't absorb anything about my career and take it to heart. I listen, but I certainly don't expect [fame] to happen. I'm very young, and I'm learning how to go about

  things."---Paltrow quoted in Daily News, November 9, 1993.
  "I don't really understand the concept of having a career, or what an agent means when they say they're building one for you. I just do things I think will be interesting and that have integrity. I hate those tacky, pointless, big, fluffy, unimportant movies."---Gwyneth Paltrow to Jennifer Beals in Interview, September 1995.
  "I've never placed too much stock in Hollywood or in what people think of me b

  ecause it's all so fleeting. If I just stay the way I am, the way my parents raised me to be, then I'll be able to sail through. I guess they showed me by example."---Paltrow to Biography, Spring 2004.
  "In this day and age, if you sit up straight, chew with your mouth closed and have good manners, you're a snob."---Gwyneth Paltrow quoted in Harper's Bazaar, November 2001.
  

  

  "It was really important to my mother that we have an East Coast education and sensibility. She took us to the opera, which I hated at the time but appreciate now. She was always dragging us to see underground dance troupes and to bizarre theater performances in converted churches in the Village. She wanted to showus the world and its possibilities. She wanted us enriched, and I love her for it."---Paltrow to Dotson Rader in Parade, January 17, 1999.
  "My father was the center of my life. As a kid, I could go to him with any question, whether it was the square root of something or who was king in what year. He can change tires or build a treehouse or do algebra. He knows all the words in the dictionary. I love him so much."

  "When I was 10, we went to England. My mother was shooting a miniseries there... My dad took me to Paris for the weekend. We had the most amazing time. On the plane back to London, he asked me, 'Do you know why I took you to Paris, only you and me?' And I said, 'Why?' And he said, 'Because I wanted you to see Paris for the first time with a man who would always love you."---Paltrow quoted in Parade, January 17, 1998.
  "She's strong. If you cast her, you're really making a choice. There's nothing generic about Gwynny."---Steve Kloves, who directed Paltrow in "Flesh and Bone" told the

  

  Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1996.
  "There is something about the British psyche that appeals to me. I feel comfortable playing British. Maybe it's the British reserve that I like. They've got fire underneath, but on the outside, they're reserved. I like that."---Paltrow to Dallas Morning News

  , December 26, 1998.
  "There was a palpable difference in energy when I was a boy. The guys on the set treated me more as an equal than when I was this pale, frail blonde girl. There was a lot of back-slapping as a boy."---Paltrow on posing as a male for scenes in "Shakespeare in Love" to Chicago Sun-Times, December 21, 1998.
  "What are you gonna do? It's life. I can think of worse things that can happen. I would take lots of nude photos if I could change certain things about the world. I'd rather my cousin Keith still be alive [he died of cancer eight years ago this month]. And if I could bring back Harrison Kravis [a close friend who died in a car accident], I'd do my own Tomm

  y Lee-Pamela Anderson video, you know? It's a matter of perspective. It's all about how you weigh what's really important."---Paltrow on the infamous nude photos of her taken by paparazzi, to Time Out New York, April 23-30, 1998.
  "You want to be an actor. You don't want to be in [the] tabloids. To me, those worlds seem mutually exclusive. And I fully understand that for whatever reason I'm one of those people where there's an interest, if you will, in my personal life. But I do think people are kind of bored. I've got a couple kids, a husband; I've just been at home."---Paltrow to EW, February 2, 2007.
  In April 2000, Paltrow was sued for damages by siblings allegedly injured in an April 1999 automobile accident.
  

• Milestones

  (2001) Acted in the Farrelly brothers' comedy, "Shallow Hal", playing both a 300-pound woman and the version of her seen by her boyfriend
  (1997) Announced as star of "Duets" to co-star then-fiance Brad Pitt and to be directed by her father Bruce; project put in turnaround when she and Pitt broke up
  (1991) Appeared in "Picnic" with her mother at Williamstown Theatre Festival
  (1990) Appeared in the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
  (1996) Cast as a hard-bitten prostitute in "Sydney/Hard Eight"; premiered at film festivals before being retitled and released theatrically in 1997
  (2004) Cast as reporter Polly Perkins opposite Jude Law in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" written and directed by Kerry Conran
  

  

  (1991) Cast by family friend Steven Spielberg as the young Wendy in "Hook"
  

  (2007) Cast in the Sundance screened, "The Good Night," directed by youn

  ger brother Jake Paltrow
  (2000) Directed by father in "Duets", with Scott Speedman assuming role originally intended for Pitt
  (1998) Displayed a cool reserve as Estrella in Alfonso Cuaron's contempora

  ry updating of Dickens' "Great Expectations"
  (1991) Feature acting debut in supporting role in "Shout"
  (1993) First feature in a substantial role, "Flesh and Bone"; cast as the young girlfriend of an unpredictable James Caan
  

  (1996) Had breakthrough leading role as title character in Douglas McGrath's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Emma"
  (2001) Had co-starring role as a depressed playwright in "The Royal Tenenbaums"
  (2000) Had hit single in Australia with "Cruisin'", a duet with Huey Lewis from the soundtrack of "Duets"
  (1998) Inherited the Grace Kelly role in "A Perfect Murder", a loose remake of Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder"
  (2002) Made London stage debut in "Proof" at the Donmar Warehouse under the direction of John Madden
  (2006) Made her directing debut, co-directing a 10-minute short called ''Dealbreakers,'' a comic montage about a woman's series of bad first dates; also penned the script
  Moved to L.A. to pursue career
  Moved with family to NYC
  (1995) Played Patsy, the daughter of the future US President, in the Merchant-Ivory production "Jefferson in Paris"
  (2006) Plays a spinster-type woman who lives at home with her crazy psychiatrist dad (Brian Cox) in "Running with Scissors"
  (1995) Portrayed the wife of a detective (Brad Pitt) tracking a serial killer in "Seven" Raised in California until about age 11
  

  (1998) Received raves and a Best Actress Academy Award for her performance as Viola, who serves as the muse for the playwright, in "Shakespeare in Love", helmed by John Madden
  (2005) Reunited with director John Madden to reprise her role in "Proof," based on the David Auburn play in which she also starred in the London production; earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress
  (2006) Reunites with director Doug McGrath for the Truman Capote biopic "Infamous"
  (2005) Signed a multiyear contract with Estee Lauder to appear in a new global print and TV ad campaign for Pleasures fragrance
  Spent summers with her mother, actress Blythe Danner, at the Williamstown
  

  

  Theatre Festival
  (2003) Starred as the American poet Sylvia Plath in "Sylvia"; also featured her mother Blythe Danner
  (2003) Starred in the comedy "A View From The Top"
  (1996) Starred opposite David Schwimmer in the romantic comedy "The Pallbearer"
  

  (1999) Starred opposite Matt Damon in "The Talented Mr. Ripley"
  (1992) TV miniseries debut, "Cruel Doubt" (NBC); portrayed daughter of character played by Blythe Danner
  (2000) Teamed on screen with former off-screen beau Ben Affleck in "Bounce"
  (2002) Teamed with Aaron Eckhart in "Possession", helmed by Neil LaBute
  Will portray Pepper Potts, Starks' loyal secretary in the marvel comcis' "Iron Man" (lensed 2007)