Together with growing up in a show business family, this has made her
exceedingly careful about her choices, Paltrow says. "It's so unfair,"
she says, idly igniting the plastic wrap of her cigarette pack with a
lighter. "You get so famous that it becomes limiting. I'd much prefer
to be a Jennifer Jason Leigh -- just for me. There's nothing wrong
with being a big movie star if that's what you want. But I'd just
like to do roles that are different, challenging." She pauses. "I'd
rather do quality work than pack 'em in at the mall."
Paltrow says she always had her heart set on acting, though her
parents were keen for her to get a college education and pursue
anthropology or art history. But acting was, perhaps, inevitable.
Danner would take Gwyneth and her brother, Jake, on location and to
Williamstown, Mass., where she performed every summer at the theater;
Gwyneth would go to camp and later help her mother run her lines and
do makeup. Both siblings feel as comfortable on sets as they do in
department stores. (Jake Paltrow, 20, has already directed a movie
that won favorable reviews at this year's Sundance festival.)
Paltrow was hardly a diligent student. During high school she would
slip from the house at night, leaving notes pinned to her pillow
telling her parents not to worry. After graduating from Spence, she
lasted for a year at UC Santa Barbara, but kept skipping town to Los
Angeles for auditions. After seeing Paltrow perform at Williamstown
the summer after that academic year, her father finally encouraged
her to pursue an acting career full time.
"It was an incredible moment," she recalls. "I knew then that he
thought I had it." And what does she think? "You really don't know
until you begin," she says. "I was sort of waiting. But I remember
with `Flesh and Bone' " -- her first movie role of consequence --
"thinking I sort of knew I was going to get it."
Which is not to say that the actress hasn't had her moments of
doubt. There was that period after "Flesh and Bone" when she kept
auditioning for parts and losing them, in the final round, to
someone else. One of them was in "Legends of the Fall," which went
to Julia Ormond; another was in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives,"
which went to Juliette Lewis. "I was really getting frustrated,"
she says. "I was thinking, `I'm never going to get anywhere.' "
That lasted for, um, three months. "My parents said, `Don't worry.
If you're getting this close, then it's just a matter of time.' "
She smiles, a passing ray of light on a pale, porcelain face. "And
they were right."
Stardom
It happened to Sandra Bullock. It happened to Julia Roberts. It is
happening -- as you read this -- to Matthew McConaughey, an unknown
who appears on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair in a story that
declares him "Hollywood's new sensation."
Stardom began happening to Paltrow about 2 1/2 years ago, after her
critically acclaimed supporting performance in "Flesh and Bone."
Soon after that, her name began appearing in all the right places
as someone to watch, and within a year Paltrow had qualified as an
"it" girl of '90s cinema, along with a few others, including Uma
Thurman, Cameron Diaz and, lately, Oscar-winning Mira Sorvino.
Why Paltrow? Sure, she is needle-thin, waifish and blond, a real-
life icon for a Calvin Klein world. Yes, she is charming and poised
and, by all accounts, very nice. But is there more?
"I remember seeing her when she was 17 at Williamstown" -- where
Paltrow played in "Picnic" with her mother -- "and I thought at that
moment, `She's major,' " says Miramax's Donna Gigliotti, executive
producer of "Emma." "She was a complete surprise. She has a star
quality. She's head and shoulders above anyone else in her group."
"People look at her and say, `This is someone who has a lot of
class, a lot of talent. She has a name, she's Brad Pitt's
girlfriend -- she's bound to go far,' " says Beth Senniac, a
publicist for Vanity Fair who was in on the decision to put Paltrow
on the cover last year. "It puts her in a different class than a lot
of other actresses."
Film critics have generally suspended judgment, waiting to see more.
True, there was that rave review in this newspaper in 1993 over her
performance as punky young grifter Ginnie in "Flesh and Bone": "a
sensational newcomer who walks away with the movie in a nonessential
role." But few reviews of her next movie, "Jefferson in Paris," in
which she plays Jefferson's daughter Patsy, even mentioned her. Last
year's "Moonlight and Valentino," a goofy female-bonding tearjerker
about mourning, was panned by the critics, though one reviewer
praised Paltrow for giving her character "a combination of flakiness
and innocence"; the critics also dumped on "The Pallbearer," with
reviews of Paltrow's performance ranging from "moony and helpless"
to "radiant" to "terrifically skittish."
Toni Collette, the 23-year-old Australian star of the hit film
"Muriel's Wedding" who has supporting roles in both "The Pallbearer"
and "Emma," is philosophical about her friend's apparently effortless
success.
"Gwyneth is a product of the system here," Collette says without
rancor. "There are magazines and television dedicated to that sort of
[expletive] -- it scares me. She's amazingly talented -- so many
people aren't at all -- and publicity can create stars; gossip
creates a certain hype."
But Paltrow insists she has done it on her own. Having well-known
parents, she says, "certainly gets you in the door. People want to
see if the progeny can perform. But it certainly doesn't keep you
in the room. Whoever says that I get work because of my relations
hasn't done their homework."
Hollywood's Blessing
Something about the entirety of Paltrow -- her look and her savvy
and her parents and her boyfriend -- has convinced Hollywood that
she has what it takes to make it, a conviction that has a way of
becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For, still without a box office or a critically successful film
to her credit, Paltrow is terribly in demand. She no longer
auditions for parts. She's followed by photographers. She's on
three magazine covers at once. The actress has just finished the
psychological thriller "Kilronen," with Jessica Lange. She has
begun work on a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens's "Great
Expectations," playing Estella. Then she'll travel with Pitt to
Argentina, where he'll be filming "Seven Years in Tibet." For all
intents and purposes, she's already a star.
And if she's as smart as she seems, and as good as everyone
claims, maybe someday she'll deserve to be one.
"I'm secure in who I am. That I owe to my parents," she says.
"People can say whatever they want. They can't hurt me. And that's
a really good thing to possess."
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