The role Gwyneth Paltrow was torn over: “I had mixed feelings about it”
There must be nothing weirder than playing somebody in a movie. It requires a physical and behavioural transformation into another person, slipping inside of their skin and, to the closest extent possible, becoming them.
For some method actors, there’s even an interior transfiguration, as on some conscious level, they appear to think they really are the person. Daniel Day-Lewis had cast and crew address him as ‘Mr President’ on the Lincoln set, while Austin Butler appeared to get lost inside his approximation of Elvis Presley’s Memphis twang for a while.
That said, the figurative resurrection of another soul for entertainment has raised some thorny questions. There are some easy outs if the person in question is along for the joke, though; take Hunter S Thompson already being friends with Johnny Depp prior to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or England’s most famous criminal becoming a fan of Tom Hardy after he watched Bronson.
However, what of the cases where the person, or their loved ones, are less than happy about some Hollywood thespian waltzing in and presenting a million-dollar impression of them? That was the dilemma faced by Gwyneth Paltrow when faced with the option of depicting Sylvia Plath in Christine Jeffs’ 2003 biopic Sylvia.
As a towering figure in modern letters with a tragic tale of doomed love and self-annihilation, it’s no surprise Hollywood scriptwriters were keen to spin a narrative from Plath’s life. While the studios were likely salivating, the family was not so keen.
It’s a complex situation for an actor to wade into, but perhaps in the search for content meaty enough to match her 1999 Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’ following Shakespeare in Love, that’s exactly what Paltrow did. When questioned about Hughes’ response to the film by the BBC, Paltrow was careful to tread the line between understanding and still feeling justified in her performance.
“I had mixed feelings about it,” she said. “As a person who’s in the public eye and who’s very protective of my own privacy, and as a daughter, I completely understood where she was coming from. But on the other hand, as an artist, I thought: here’s this incredible woman, who you’d be surprised by how many people have no idea who she was, and have never read the poems. So I thought, if there’s a way to get her out into the world more, then it’s doing a great service to her. So I was torn about it.”
Paltrow was going through her own personal difficulties at the time, with her father – director Bruce Paltrow – having recently died. Already “so torn up with grief,” the Oscar winner “felt this bravery and this lust to do the role as honestly as I could, and be as raw and open as possible,” which gave her a fresh vulnerability that allowed her to approach the role of Plath with full honesty in a turn that’s become regarded as one of the best she’s given.
