Engaging Paltrow
Beauty and brains are Ms. Paltrow's calling card

http://www.canoe.ca/JamMoviesArtistsP/paltrow_gwyneth.html
Sunday, January 25, 1998
By NATASHA STOYNOFF
Toronto Sun


HOLLYWOOD -- It is too early on the morning after a night of Golden
Globe partying, and Gwyneth Paltrow sidles into the room sleepily
but looking no worse for wear.

"I didn't drink anything last night," she says proudly. "I was smart."

But the evening was already intoxicating enough for the 25-year-old
actress, whose life took a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs last
year -- including her engagement, then disengagement, to sex symbol
Brad Pitt.

'SO SURREAL'

So at the Golden Globe Awards the previous night, as Paltrow's new
squeeze, Ben Affleck, won an award for his film Good Will Hunting,
Paltrow surveyed the glitterati at the gala and did a hasty
assessment of her own situation.

"I looked around and just thought, 'I can't believe my life! There's
Jessica Lange, who I just did a film with, there's Steven (Spielberg)
and Kate (Capshaw) , and there's Jack Nicholson, who kept trying to
ask me out on a date.

"And I thought, 'This is so bizarre! Who am I?' It was so surreal. "

Who she "is," in the public eye, is one of the busiest, most-talented
actresses around (with two upcoming releases -- Great Expectations
and Sliding Doors), and the woman who was once engaged to Brad Pitt.

Who she is, sitting 10 inches away with a sprinkling of freckles,
cropped hair in a baby-ponytail and Donna Karan slacks slipping below
her belly button, is a girl trying to sort out this whole "fame" thing.

"I think I'm in pathological denial, I really do," she says, crossing
and uncrossing her long, lanky limbs.

"Every time I see myself on a cover of a magazine, I think: 'That's so
weird, and I put it out of my mind. I wish I could explain what it's
like. It's really hard. I feel kind of narcissistic when I think about
it."

Narcissism is what was required for her role as the seductive yet ice-
cold Estella in Great Expectations -- a "kind of a classic on acid,"
says Paltrow of the modern-day remake of the Dickens tale opening here
Friday.

Co-starring Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft and Ethan Hawke as the artist
obsessed with Estella since boyhood, it's not quite the tale we wrote
essays about in English class.

"We took great poetic licence with it," says Paltrow. "It was sort of
an artistic experiment."

The sexual part of the experiment included an up-the-dress camera shot
between Paltrow's legs -- panties included -- but startlingly explicit,
nonetheless. So much so that Paltrow's father, director Bruce Paltrow,
has already told her he's going to sit this one out.

"He saw the trailers on Entertainment Tonight," giggles Paltrow, who
ran alternately hot and cold about the disrobing question.

SEXUALLY OVERT

"It was a challenge to play somebody so ensconced in her own brain ,
so sexually overt," she says. "And it was kind of empowering, ya know?
It was."

However, among other shadowy nude scenes, the actress used a body
double in one frontal stomach shot, because "you would have to not
wear a bra for the shot, and I just didn't want to do that in front
of the crew."

In Sliding Doors, a smaller British film by first-time director/writer
Peter Howitt, Paltrow will experience more duality, as her character
explores the eternal question: What if?

The film of fate follows Paltrow's character along two storylines that
hinge on how different her life might be if she (A) misses the subway,
or (B)catches the subway train that morning.

"What got to me about this film is what will get to the most innocent
audience member that lets themselves get swept away by the premise,"
she says. "It's so clever and funny. And so romantic."

Also coming up for the actress is a thriller with Michael Douglas
where, she says: "I broke one of my cardinal rules. I held a gun in a
movie.

"I swore to myself there were two things I would never do. One was
hold a gun. The other one was, before a reasonable age, say, like,
'I object, your honor!' and be the skinny blonde girl who's the
lawyer," she laughs, scrunching her nose. Then she launches into
Valley Girl lingo: "Like, WHATEVER, I'm so SURE you went to law
school!"

A third rule suggested, and perhaps considered for a moment, is to
refrain from dating fellow actors.

But, with a blush, Paltrow admits "I am," in the embodiment of rising
star Affleck.

But not before several, post-Pitt months where she cried on friend
Winona Ryder's shoulder (and crashed on her couch), and was
boyfriendless for the first time.

"It's great to be by yourself," she says, choosing her words carefully.

"Hmmm, what do I want to say about this," she smiles, gauging her
thoughts and words. "I learned a lot.

"Brad never did anything wrong, don't get that idea," she quickly
adds about rumors of the actor cheating on her.

But those first few months without Pitt had "some emotional
similarities" to her Sliding Doors character, who is post-break-up.

"It's interesting, because when I did the film, I was in a much
different place," Paltrow says.

"But now, to watch it and hear this girl going (to a potential
suitor): 'Look, you're really nice and you're really smart, and under
different circumstances, but I'm just going through this major
break-up.' I went, 'Wow, it's art-imitating-life.' "

The months alone were important, she says, "otherwise you won't know
who you are.

KNOW WHO YOU ARE

"You have to know who you are irrespective of the company you keep.
That's becoming a grown-up."

Now presumably matured, and embarking on a new romance, Paltrow dares
to make a new cardinal rule -- about the men in her life.

"It's to always stay true to myself," she vows, "whatever relationship
I have."