The movies Gwyneth Paltrow calls her “shit” films
While Gwyneth Paltrow may be better known for her healthy lifestyle brand Goop today, it is her acting talents that first thrust her into the mainstream consensus. Paltrow first came to attention after starring in movies such as Seven, Sliding Doors and A Perfect Murder, setting up a promising career in the film industry.
Paltrow’s career continued to take off after drawing admiration for her performances in the likes of Shakespeare in Love, for which she won the Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’. Notably, the actor delivered yet more impressive performances in The Talented Mr Ripley and Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. However, since the mid-2000s, Paltrow’s output in that sense has significantly been reduced.
During an interview with The Guardian, Paltrow once claimed that she separates her filmography into two sections: one for labours of love and the other for films which simply pay the bills. That second section also has a less-than-kind name, especially for those involved in the project. She calls them her “shit” films.
According to the journalist who interviewed her, Paltrow put a number of specific movies in that second pile. One of them is View from the Top, which according to Paltrow, “Harvey Weinstein talked [her] into doing”. Paltrow plays a young woman who sets out to achieve her dream of becoming a flight attendant.
Another is Shallow Hal, in which Jack Black plays the titular role of a shallow man who falls for an incredibly overweight lady after he is hypnotised into seeing the inner beauty of people rather than their external appearance. Paltrow plays the role of Rosemary Shanahan, who Hal falls in love with.
It’s easy to understand why Paltrow considers these films, by the likes of the Farrelly brothers and Bruno Barreto, as a negative stain on her creative output. There are certainly not the kind of films that would receive critical admiration, even if they do manage to turn over a handsome profit at the box office.
In the interview, Paltrow also explained why she became the face of Estee Lauder and was wrapped up in the world of advertising, and it largely came down to the fact she stopped doing such “shit” films like the ones mentioned above.
“I’ll tell you why,” she said. “I basically stopped making money from acting in 2002. All the things I’ve done since then have been things I’ve really wanted to do, and I have not made money from them.” So, evidently, money was not the most important thing for Paltrow when it came to her acting roles.
