Gwyneth Paltrow - Fashion Superstar


(by Merle Ginsberg)
Part Hollywood fashion icon, part girl next door, Gwyneth Paltrow is
one cool package - especially in these all-American clothes. 

Why has Gwyneth Paltrow reigned as America's It Girl for the last few
years? Some might attribute it to her undeniable style, and the fact
that just about every designer worth his pincushion is dying to dress
her. Others might say it's her ability to shine in relatively small,
unique films, including Emma and Sliding Doors. Still others might
cite her knack for snagging the right It Boys: first Brad Pitt (whom
she won't even mention by name), and now Ben Affleck.

But regardless of whom Paltrow's dating, the 25-year-old actress
always charts her own course - especially in her career. In her
latest movie, Shakespeare in Love, due out at Christmas from Miramax,
Paltrow plays an Elizabethan woman who becomes the new muse for
playwright Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes). The project required
her to master yet another British accent, to play a dual role (one of
them in drag), and to speak in verse alongside a cast of RSC pros.
Director John Madden, a former professor
of Shakespeare at Yale, says Paltrow did everything uncannily well.
"She's just a terribly bright girl," he says. "It came so easily to
her, as all things seem to."

This fall Paltrow is flying back and forth between Manhattan and
Italy, where she's playing a 1950s golden girl (opposite Matt Damon
and Jude Law) in Anthony Minghella's crime drama The Talented Mr.
Ripley. In her down time, she still occasionally allows herself to
savor the perks of Gwynethmania: the designer clothes, the fashion
shows, even the public kissing sessions with her famous boyfriends.
But after a long stretch of continuous activity, she insists, she's
ready for a rest. And, for the moment, a sit-down with W.

W: Okay, let's start with your hair. Since when does Gwyneth have
   big hair?

GP: I got it from my mother - big, blond, bushy. I hate my hair! I
    totally want limp, stick-straight Swedish hair. But I have to
    blow dry it for an hour to get it like that. I get out of the
    shower and start sweating from blowdrying my hair for so long.
    I can't [stand] it.

W: When you cut it short about two years ago, for Sliding Doors,
   you unwittingly kicked off a trend - people rushed to Laurent D.
   at Prive to get the same gamine haircut.

GP: It's so silly. Peter Howitt, who directed the movie, asked me to
    get a haircut to portray the second character. I said, "Sure,
    why not?" Then I cut it off and everyone freaked out. It's just
    my hair! That was sort of the first time I realized, What's
    happened in my life, if everyone cares that I cut my hair?

W: And now your messy, undone hairstyle is the one that everyone's
   imitating - even on the runway.

GP: That's the way I look when I get out of bed and go for milk.
    It's weird when that happens. It is flattering - to think little
    girls think you're cool. There are a lot of shitty things about
    being famous, and amazing things, too. But one of the best things
    is when you're in the street and you see a kid coming toward you,
    a girl going through her teenage angst, and she'll see you and her
    whole mood changes. It's a pretty amazing power - to be able to
    make somebody feel good. It's sweet.

W: Is it hard for you to go out in New York?

GP: I'm not really the go-out type. I love to go out for dinner, or to
    meet friends for a drink. But I don't like to go out too late at
    night. Every time I do it's in the paper, and I think, what if I
    really went out all the time? Poor Leonardo DiCaprio likes to go
    out three nights a week, like a normal kid, and he's portrayed in
    the media as a party animal, when everyone else is doing the same
    thing.

W: For most of this year, you've been out of the country, working in
   Europe. Why did you decide to do Shakespeare in Love after vowing
   to take a break?

GP: The script was the best I've ever read - really. Tom Stoppard wrote
    it, and he's brilliant. It's really a romantic comedy - Stoppard
    really embraced the medium. But there are lots of little in-jokes
    for poeple who know Shakespeare well.

W: Hasn't the script gone through a lot of incarnations?

GP: I guess Julia Roberts and Daniel Day-Lewis were going to do it.
    And later [Miramax chief] Harvey Weinstein bought it from
    Universal for a lot of money. The big studios just don't know
    how to do that kind of thing. They'll have a good ideas, they'll
    recognize talent, they'll buy a great script. Then they set about
    the business of homogenizing it. When they do have a little movie
    that's really good, like Bottle Rocket, they don't know what to
    do with it. There are certain movies that studios should just stay
    away from...I'm sorry, but there were no good movies this summer.
    The best movie of the summer, by far, was There's Something About
    Mary. I thought it was genius. And that should be a lesson to
    everybody. An odd movie, and the studio thinks nothing's going to
    happen with it - it's going to offend people - and it becomes a
    huge hit.

W: Would you ever do a wacky gross-out comedy like that?

GP: Oh, yeah.

W: Do you think you get offered the best scripts?

GP: I probably get really different scripts from what people perceive.
    Maybe I get onesthat goto Claire Danes and Winona Ryder, but not
    the Julia Roberts ones. I'd be last after Julia and Sandra and
    Nicole. I don't think of myself as this box-office wonder. I just
    keep doing these little movies, and that's more my thing.

W: But you did A Perfect Murder.

GP: [Grimances] Yeah. Yeah.

W: You're making a funny face.

GP: That's the kind of thing where I had taken the summer off and the
    fall was coming around and I thought, you know, I need a job!
    What's shooting in New York in the fall? I thought it would be fun,
    a big Hollywood thriller.

W: So do you plan to boycott the big studio movies from now on?

GP: It's hard to say. The truth is, I like my work in small movies
    better. But that may be just because I have yet to do a Holllywood
    movie that's artistically staisfying, with the exception of Flesh
    and Bone. When you do something like Shakespeare in Love, you're
    putting everything you have into it - I was so wrecked after that
    movie. I was dressed like a boy and speaking in verse with an
    English accent.

W: What was it like playing a boy?

GP: It was fun. I had this cute little wig and moustache. My
    character, Viola, wants to be an actress, but that wasn't allowed
    in Elizabethan England. So she dresses like a boy to audition for
    the play. We're not really asking people to believe I'm a boy -
    the audience is in collusion with me. But it was still very hard.
    I mean, I'm not very manly. I thought of myself as an English gay
    guy dressed in an Elizabethan outfit. I only did one thing that
    was, like, method-y: They made me this triangular bean mag to put
    in my tights. It changes your centre of gravity. It's weird - you
    walk differently.

W: How did Joseph Fiennes, who's still realtively unknown in America,
   snag the lead in the big Miramax Christmas movie?

GP: He was the best one who read for the part. They are really good
    over there - they're all trained and talented. I also met Joe's
    dad - he's very distinguished, kind of royal. They have that
    whole breeding thing. One morning, we were shotting in a huge
    castle, and Joe stumbled in with puffy eyes. I said, "Did you
    just wake up?" He was sleeping upstairs - it was his family
    estate! This huge castle with a moat around it!

W: How did you get on with Judi Dench, who plays Queen Elizabeth in a
   cameo?

GP: She was just fabulous, and kind of imtimidating - so regal. She
    has this formidable presence. You think, it's Dame Judi, do I bow?
    What do I do? But she was really cool.

W: Another actor who has a small role in the film is...Ben Affleck.
   How did that come about?

GP: [Pause] They offered him the part.

W: Is it a bit part?

GP: No, it's kind of a cameo.

W: So he did it to be with you.

GP: Oh, we don't discuss this!

W: How did you and Ben first meet?

GP: [Zips her mouth] Talking about a relationship in print is just not
    a good thing.

W: I guess you've learned the hard way.

GP: Yeah - last time, I didn't know.

W: You're 25 now, but you still manage to hang out with a lot of your
   old friends from high school. Is that hard to do, when you're
   working and traveling all the time?

GP: Not really. I can't see any other way. My girlfriends are so
    hilarious. We're all in New York this wek because one of my best
    friend from Spence, Hillary, is getting married. I'm singing at
    the wedding.

W: You sing?

GP: Yes, but it's a secret. I did sing in Emma a little bit. We used
    to be in this singing group at Spence - it was called Triple Trio.
    Nine girls, a capella. How embarrassing!

W: Are most of your friends married?

GP: No - Hillary's the first one of us to go down.

W: Go down? That doesn't have a very positive connotation.

GP: There;s honor in being single! There's honor in holding out. We're
    so young. There are people who got married too young and are now
    getting divorced. A lot of my girlfriend's say, "There's nobody
    out there." But I don't worry about it.

W: You, of all people, clearly do not need to worry.

GP: [Embarrassed] No, that's not true! It's hard, no matter who you are.

W: But you've always had a boyfriend. high-profile or not.

GP: Yeah. I have always had a long-term boyfriend. Except I was single
    six months [after breaking up with Brad Pitt]. And uh, it was weird.
    It was kind of lonely and kind of fun, and I felt like...a grown-up.
    I had gone through such intense life changes. It was the first time
    I remember feeling, I know who I am now. Before, I had no idea who I
    was, what I really wanted, what things were. I took too many things
    for granted and really didn't understand the value of things. I
    really went throught this thing and came out the other side a
    different person. I saw the world differently. I remeber once when I
    was 22 or 23 and I was having dinner with my ex-boyfriend [Pitt] and
    Sean Penn and a bunch of people in New York. And I was telling Sean,
    "Oh, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that." He said, "Do you
    know how to make God laugh? Tell him all your plans." And it scared
    the living shit out of me. I thought, that's not right! I have
    control. Now I realize that the only way you can be a content and
    well-adjusted person is if tht idea doesn't scare you.

W: Do you think you've matured faster because you live in the public eye?

GP: That's not really what happens. People always assume you've gone
    through things in public. I didn't go through anything in public -
    no one has the faintest idea what I went through. If you separate
    yourself from that person on "Entertainment Tonight" - and I don't
    watch any of those shows, I don't read any of thos things - then
    you have no idea what's going on in public. It takes a while to
    get to that place where you realize: It's not about me, it's
    about something else.

W: None of your childhood friends are in show business?

GP: Not really.

W: There's a perception that all actors in their 20s are friends with
   each other.

GP: Well, we are acquainted. I might walk into a party with them once
    in a while. That's just a better photo opportunity than a shot of
    me with, like, Betsey Kittenplan from Spence. Even though Betsey
    Kittenplan is probably way cooler and smarter than the person I'm
    walking into the party with.

W: Speaking of photo ops, do you stil get a lot of pressure from
   designers to wear their clothes?

GP: I only wear what I want to wear. It's not pressure. I've had an
    association with Calvin Klein for a long time. And I do fell a
    certain loyalty to them because they were the first people who
    said they liked my work and offered to lend me clothes - before I
    was famous or going out with anyone famous. If I had to pick, if
    I could only wear one designer the rest of my life, I'd pick
    Calvin. You can wear all the stuff. But I don't have a contract
    with Calvin or anything.

W: At last year's Costume Institute gala at the Met, you were wearing
   Donna Karan. But Calvin was spotted near you, and someone said he
   wouldn't even talk to you because you were wearing Donna.

GP: That's not even true! That's the thing about the fashion
    business - you have some of the strangest people in that business.
    You know what I don't like about them? They think it's chic too be
    bitchy. To be cold and inaccessible. And I'm so not into that. I
    was wearing Donna beucase she gave me the clothes to Great
    Expectations, and I said I'd wear Donna to do the press. When I
    say, "This is the deal," I mean it.

W: When it comes to fashion, a lot of actresses seem overwhelmed by
   having too many options at their disposal. But you always manage
   to look real.

GP: I'm comfort first the whole way. I'll sacrifice that for high
    heels, because they look really nice with the right thing. But
    that's the most I'll do. Now, what is this padded thing? Are
    you crazy to think women are going to wear a padded skirt?
    Everyone who's doing this is crazy. Have you tried them on?
    They're hideous. I look obese. Annd if I put this on and look
    obese, what about women with curves?

W: Aren't you ever tempted by trends, or by the really avant-garde
   clothes?

GP: I don't revist anything that was ugly the first time. The
    Eighties, for example - I hate the Eighties! I made apact with
    my girlfriends: "Girls, we're not getting involved in this
    Eighties thing." And I don't need to wear your idea of a
    deconstruction or theory. I want to wear a dress, not an idea.
    I'm really not behind ideas in clothes. I'm much more behind
    ideas in music or art or literature. With an outfit, what
    matters is if you look pretty, if it's cut well and the
    fabric's nice.

W: What about the prototypical L.A. starlet look?

GP: I just can't do that over-the-top thing. It's so funny when I
    see women with the set hair and the whole lipliner thing.
    Sure, you can wear dark lipstick - but then the rest of your
    face has to be clean. You can't wear red lipstick and smoky
    eyes and blush and hairstyle. Agh! We're not in Dallas.

W: What kind of look do you have in Mr. Ripley?

GP: It's set in the Fifties - Jude and I play this wealthy
    American couple living in a small town in Italy. So my hair
    is set and way - very high style. And Ann Roth is doing the
    costumes.

W: When did you first hear about the movie?

GP: About two eyars ago, Harvey [Weinstein] made me present
    something at the Golden Globes. He makes me do everything.
    He's the only one who can - he calls me at home. Anwyay, at
    the Golden Globes, Anthony Minghella and his wife came up
    to me and said, "Oh my God, our son Max is in love with
    you." Max is 10. So I wrote Max a letter, and I just became
    friends with the family. Max and I fax each other all the
    time. And later Anthony was talking about his next movie,
    and he said, "Max has cast his girlfriend Gwyneth in the
    movie." I thought, yeah, whatever. He said, "No, you're in
    this movie."

W: Did you know Matt Damon at this point?

GP: No. I knew who he was. I'd seen him in movies along the way.
    Anthony has seen Good Will Hunting before it came out, and
    they set up a screening for me, and I loved it. Anthony
    said, "What do you think about Matt for this part?" I said,
    great. So that was that.

W: So what's next after Mr. Ripley?

GP: I'm definitely taking time off - and I really don't want to
    work for a while. I know Harvey will call again. But I'm
    really read to be home.


[Editor's note: Apparently not. Paltrow has just agreed to star
in Duets, a romantic comedy directed by her father, Bruce
Paltrow. Shooting starts this month.]