Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Kate Paltrow ( PAL-troh; born September 27, 1972) is an American actress and businesswoman. The daughter of filmmaker Bruce Paltrow and actress Blythe Danner, she established herself as a leading lady appearing in primarily mid-budget and period films during the 1990s and early 2000s, before transitioning to blockbusters and franchises. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Paltrow gained notice for her early work in films including Seven (1995), Emma (1996), Sliding Doors (1998), and A Perfect Murder (1998). She garnered wider acclaim for her role as Viola de Lesseps in the historical romance Shakespeare in Love (1998), which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. This was followed by roles in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and Shallow Hal (2001). She made her West End debut in the David Auburn's play Proof (2003), earning a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress nomination, and reprised the role in the 2005 film of the same name.

After becoming a parent in 2004, Paltrow reduced her acting workload by making intermittent appearances in films such as Two Lovers (2008), Country Strong (2010), and Contagion (2011). Paltrow's career revived through her portrayal of Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from Iron Man (2008) to Avengers: Endgame (2019). On television, she had a recurring guest role as Holly Holliday on the Fox musical television series Glee (2010–2011), for which she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. After starring in the Netflix series The Politician (2019–2020), she took a break from acting, before returning with Marty Supreme (2025).

In 2005, Paltrow became a "face" of Estée Lauder Companies; she was previously the face of the American fashion brand Coach. She is the founder and CEO of the lifestyle company Goop, which has been criticized for promoting pseudoscience. She has written several cookbooks. She also received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for narrating the children's book Brown Bear and Friends (2009). She hosted the documentary series The Goop Lab for Netflix in 2020.

Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born on September 27, 1972 in Los Angeles to actress Blythe Danner and film producer-director Bruce Paltrow. She has a younger brother, Jake, who is a director and screenwriter. Paltrow's father was Jewish, while her mother is Christian. She was raised celebrating "both Jewish and Christian holidays." Her brother had a traditional Bar Mitzvah when he turned 13. Her father's Ashkenazi Jewish family emigrated from Belarus and Poland, while her mother has Pennsylvania Dutch (German) as well as some Irish and English ancestry. Paltrow's paternal great-great-grandfather was a Rabbi in Nowogród, Poland, and a descendant of the well-known Paltrowicz family of rabbis from Kraków.

Paltrow is a half-cousin of actress Katherine Moennig, through her mother, and a second cousin of former U.S. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (AZ-08) through her father. Paltrow's godfather is director Steven Spielberg. Her uncle is opera singer and actor Harry Danner, whose daughter, actress Hillary Danner, is Paltrow's cousin and close friend. Paltrow recalls their family gatherings: "Hillary and I always had this in common, and to this day ... cooking for people we love, eating, hanging out as a family. It's how we were raised. It's what we do." Another cousin is Rebekah Paltrow Neumann, whose spouse is the Israeli-American billionaire Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork.

Paltrow was raised in Santa Monica, California, where she attended Crossroads School, before enrolling in the Spence School, an all-girls private school in Manhattan. At Crossroads, Paltrow befriended classmate Maya Rudolph, whose father Richard Rudolph was friends with Gwyneth's father Bruce from their time at Tulane University. Later, she studied art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before dropping out to act. She is an "adopted daughter" of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where at 15, she spent a year as an exchange student and learned to speak Spanish. She is also conversant in French, as her family frequently traveled to the South of France throughout her childhood.

Her career beginnings can be credited to her acting family, as her acting debut was in High (1989), a TV film her father directed, and after spending several summers watching her mother perform at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, Paltrow made her professional stage debut there in 1990. Her film debut followed with the musical romance film Shout (1991), starring John Travolta, and she was cast by her godfather Steven Spielberg in the commercially successful adventure feature Hook (1991) as the young Wendy Darling. Paltrow's next roles were in the made-for-television movies Cruel Doubt (1992) and Deadly Relations (1993).

Her first plum feature film role was in the noir drama Flesh and Bone (1993) as the much younger girlfriend of James Caan. Janet Maslin of The New York Times described Paltrow as a scene-stealer "who is Blythe Danner's daughter and has her mother's way of making a camera fall in love with her."

In 1995, she starred in the thriller Seven, as the wife of a young detective (Brad Pitt), who is partnered with the retiring William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and then tasked with tracking down a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as tropes in his murders. The seventh highest grossing film of the year, Seven earned her a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in Moonlight and Valentino, as a grieving chain-smoker, and in Jefferson in Paris, portraying Martha Jefferson Randolph.

In 1996, Paltrow played the title character in the period film adaptation Emma, based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. Director Douglas McGrath decided to bring in Paltrow to audition for the part of Emma Woodhouse, after a suggestion from his agent and after seeing her performance in Flesh and Bone. On his decision to cast the actress, McGrath revealed: "The thing that actually sold me on her playing a young English girl was that she did a perfect Texas accent. I know that wouldn't recommend her to most people ... I knew she had theater training, so she could carry herself. We had many actresses, big and small, who wanted to play this part. The minute she started the read-through, the very first line, I thought, 'Everything is going to be fine; she's going to be brilliant.'" While she recovered from wisdom-tooth surgery, Paltrow had a month to herself to do research for the part; she studied horsemanship, dancing, singing, archery and the "highly stylized" manners and dialect during a 3-week rehearsal period. The film was released to critical acclaim and commercial success through arthouse cinemas. Variety proclaimed: "Gwyneth Paltrow shines brightly as Jane Austen's most endearing character, the disastrously self-assured matchmaker Emma Woodhouse. A fine cast, speedy pacing, and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes." Paltrow starred in the crime film Hard Eight.

1998 marked a turning point in Paltrow's career as she took on leading roles in five high-profile film releases in the year—Great Expectations, Sliding Doors, Hush, A Perfect Murder and Shakespeare in Love. In the adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, also starring Ethan Hawke, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft and Chris Cooper, she played the unrequited and haughty childhood love of a New York City painter. The British drama Sliding Doors saw her star as a woman whose life could take two central paths depending on whether or not she catches a train, causing different outcomes. Great Expectations and Sliding Doors both grossed over $55 million worldwide. Paltrow starred opposite Jessica Lange in the thriller Hush, as an unsuspecting woman living with her psychotic mother-in-law. The film made $13.5 million domestically and was generally panned by critics. In another thriller, A Perfect Murder, inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, Dial M for Murder, Paltrow starred alongside Michael Douglas, playing Emily Taylor, who was based on Grace Kelly's character from the original film. Despite a mixed critical response towards A Perfect Murder, the film grossed $128 million globally. She was also considered for the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater in the 1997 film Titanic.

Paltrow is a Save the Children artist ambassador, raising awareness about World Pneumonia Day. She is on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that works to alleviate poverty in New York City.

In April 2020, Paltrow, along with other celebrities, discussed the COVID-19 pandemic with Dr. Anthony Fauci on a one-hour-long zoom call. Fauci hoped the celebrities would use their social media "megaphones" to encourage proper precautions among their followers.

In 2009, Paltrow narrated the audiobook The Brown Bear & Friends by Bill Martin Jr., the first of a series of children's audiobooks that she narrated. The Brown Bear & Friends earned Paltrow a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children. Since, she has also narrated Bill Martin's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?, Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?, and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?.

In May 2005, Paltrow became the face of Estée Lauder's Pleasures perfume. She appeared in Chicago on August 17, 2007, to sign bottles of the perfume, and on July 8, 2008, she promoted Lauder's Sensuous perfume in New York with the company's three other models. Estée Lauder donates a minimum of $500,000 of sales of items from the 'Pleasures Gwyneth Paltrow' collection to breast cancer research. In 2006, she became the face for Bean Pole International, a Korean fashion brand and in 2014, she partnered with Blo Blow Bar, teaming up with the brand's creative branch.

In September 2008, Paltrow launched the weekly lifestyle newsletter Goop, encouraging readers to "nourish the inner aspect". Goop has expanded into a web-based company, Goop.com. According to Paltrow, the company's name came from someone telling her that successful internet companies have double O's in their name, and "is a nickname, like my name is G.P., so that is really where it came from. And I wanted it to be a word that means nothing and could mean anything." Goop has expanded into e-commerce, collaborating with fashion brands, launching pop-up shops, launching a wellness summit, a print magazine, a podcast, and a documentary series streamed on Netflix.

As of 2013, Paltrow practices Transcendental Meditation.

In 2014, Paltrow, whose father was Jewish, was planning to convert to Judaism. In December 2024, she revealed that she celebrates Hanukkah each year with her family.

As an actress, Paltrow performed in mainly low-budget films for much of her early career, starring in few blockbusters until the mid-2000s. According to Charles Taylor of Salon, many of these performances were characterized by a "blasé" demeanor that made her endearing yet overall demonstrated "a promising actress who needed some training to refine her potential". Similarly, Jose Solis of PopMatters said, "When she's good, she's absolutely brilliant, when she's bad, she just seems deeply uninterested". Many of her characters were wealthy, privileged, and academic, and she was often labeled "Hollywood royalty" in the press. Many viewers mistakenly assumed she was British because of her frequent roles as ingénues in period films, and some publications have described her feigned British accent as one of the best among non-British actors. She was frequently compared to actress Grace Kelly, with whom she shared "blondness, refinement, glacial good looks and all-round star quality", according to The Independent.

Film critic Owen Gleiberman described Paltrow as one of the industry's finest actresses in 2011. He was perplexed by readers' negative comments towards her on his reviews of her work, but agreed that her reputation had suffered from a selection of weaker roles and reduced workload. Critic Wesley Morris defended her acting, calling Paltrow among the final generation of movie stars "for whom stardom and skill seem scarily, thrillingly natural" and "for a while, the best young American actor in Hollywood". Paltrow herself has stated that her passion for acting waned early in her career due to the scrutiny she received as a young actress, with Morris theorizing that she pivoted away from acting towards an industry she could exercise complete autonomy over. In 2019, she claimed to have been only "masquerading as an actor" before founding Goop. Christina Newland of BBC said Paltrow used her roles throughout the 1990s to cultivate "an image off and on-screen ... as a chic social butterfly with charm to spare". She also established herself as a fashion icon, becoming recognized for her minimal style of dressing for public events. In April 2013, Paltrow was named People magazine's annual "Most Beautiful Woman".

Paltrow has been described as a polarizing and divisive public figure by the media for much her career. Although generally revered as an actress, her subsequent career endeavors as a businesswoman have garnered mixed reviews. Taylor wrote in 2004 that "No star of the last 10 years has been such a magnet for the neuroses and prejudices of those who watch her than Paltrow", which the author surmised as due to her being "rich, white, beautiful and successful". In 2023, Leanne Delap, a writer for Everything Zoomer, called her "one of the most divisive personages of our time", equally beloved and hated. Many of her remarks regarding diet, health, wellness, and wealth have drawn public backlash and mockery, which some critics have used to justify dismissing her as a privileged and "out of touch" celebrity.

Paltrow has attributed the public's discourse surrounding her to the perception that her success hinges exclusively on the achievements and wealth of her parents, which she has attempted to dispel in interviews. The actress also maintains that the public's shift in favor against her can be traced back to the moment she delivered an emotional acceptance speech when she won her Oscar for Shakespeare in Love in 1998. Journalist Hadley Freeman believes Paltrow is completely in control of how she is perceived, describing her as a performer who has ingeniously cultivated an overexposed image that allows her career to benefit from being a parody of the modern-day celebrity.

According to entertainment journalist Dylan Howard, "Inevitably, in a saga of Hollywood, people identify with either the sympathetic character or the villain ... When it comes to Gwyneth Paltrow, she's both the villain and sympathetic figure". Describing her as "successful, opinionated and seemingly happy" in 2013, journalist Tanya Gold attributed her unpopularity – particularly among women – to her "venturing beyond the accepted Hollywood script and expressing her thoughts about clothing, motherhood and nutrition". Some journalists theorized that Paltrow's brand and reputation benefited from the sympathy she gained during the ski crash trials, as reported by Edward Helmore of The Guardian. The Independent said "The very trial that threatened to harm her reputation — one that has not been exempt from its fair amount of controversies over questionable advice ... ultimately invigorated the Hollywood actor's image in the court of public opinion". However, Alex Abad-Santos of Vox argued that, rather than seek sympathy or relatability, Paltrow embraced the stereotypes her detractors had long accused her of perpetuating, ultimately to her own benefit. Paltrow's penchant for wearing understated luxury-brand clothing during the trial also received widespread coverage, inspiring a trend known as "courtcore", as coined by The New York Times fashion journalist Vanessa Friedman.

According to The Daily Telegraph in 2026, Paltrow "has typically stayed quiet on political matters". That year, she said on the Goop Podcast, "I'm pretty centrist, and my husband thinks I'm a Republican − which, I'm not a Republican. I don't feel anything right now, to be totally honest with you. I feel like I'm completely an independent."

In October 2014, Paltrow held a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee at her estate in Brentwood, California. She praised President Barack Obama for supporting equal pay for women, which she said was "very important to me as a working mother." She held a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in 2019.

In 2022, Paltrow supported Rick Caruso in that year's Los Angeles mayoral election. In 2023, she praised anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., saying, "It was very interesting to hear his point of view. Since then he's said some things that I think are tricky, let's put it that way." In 2025, she said she was "very fascinated" by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement championed by Kennedy.

In 2026, The Times described Paltrow as being "among the most prominent pro-Israel celebrities in Hollywood". She has spoken at events held by Hadassah, a Zionist women's organization.

Following the 2023 October 7 attacks on Israel, Paltrow expressed support for the hostages taken by Hamas, and signed a letter urging then-President Joe Biden to help them. In 2024, she criticized the killing of Shani Louk, and the silence of feminists on alleged rape by Hamas during the October 7 attacks. That year, she also participated in a Hanukkah video campaign alongside Noa Tishby, an Israeli actress and activist.

Paltrow has starred in over 50 films. According to review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Paltrow's most critically acclaimed and commercial successful films include Avengers: Endgame (2019), Iron Man (2008), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Contagion (2011), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Emma (1996), Seven (1995), Hard Eight (1996), Two Lovers (2008), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Iron Man 3 (2013), Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), Infamous (2006), Iron Man 2 (2010), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), and Flesh and Bone (1993).

Paltrow has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Paltrow received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6900 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.