Gwyneth Paltrow admits she passed on 'a lot' of big Hollywood roles to raise her kids
Gwyneth Paltrow is opening up about balancing her career with motherhood.
During a recent interview on "The Today Show," Paltrow revealed "there were a lot" of film roles she chose to pass on in order to stay at home with her children when they were younger.
"I mean it’s funny because it didn’t feel like a sacrifice to me at the time, but if I look back at it through a cultural lens, I think like, wow, if people know that I didn’t do this movie or that movie, they’d be quite shocked," she said.
The "The Talented Mr. Ripley" star shares two kids, Apple, 19, and Moses, 17, with her ex-husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
She previously spoke with People, in November 2023, telling them she had become more selective about the roles she took after becoming a mom, explaining she hasn't appeared in a whole movie since welcoming her kids. According to Paltrow, "the last time [she] was in every scene of a movie was when" she was pregnant with Apple.
"When I had her, it just, everything felt redefined for me, and I thought, 'I'm not sure that I want to do this so much as a career. I definitely don't want to...I'm not going to go away for months on end.'"
Since Apple was born in May 2004, Paltrow has most notably appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Pepper Potts, five episodes of "Glee," the films "Contagion" and "Mortdecai," and most recently in "The Politician."
Elsewhere in the "Today Show" interview, Paltrow toyed around with the idea of potentially going for the coveted EGOT status. Having already won an Oscar and Emmy Award for her roles in "Shakespeare in Love" and "Glee" respectively, she would need to win a Grammy and a Tony Award, saying she "would like to do a play actually, but not for the sake of an EGOT."
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The last time Paltrow appeared on-screen was in 2020, in the Netflix show, "The Politician," which was co-created by her husband, Brad Falchuk. Aside from that, she has chosen not to appear on camera, but did lend her voice to the film "She Said," and the show, "American Horror Stories."
"It's non-stop right now, so I don't know how I could go on set, but maybe at some point," she said regarding a potential return to the screen. "I don't know. I never say never. That I have learned."
The actress is busy running her wellness brand, Goop, which she started in September 2008.
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In terms of the success of Goop, Paltrow explains it's "about remaining humble and agile and never thinking that you can relax and rest on your laurels."
"To be honest, I don't know the full landscape all that well, and so I'm not sure what has not performed well or why. But it’s just really f---ing hard, and I didn’t know that when I started. I had no idea what I was getting into," she told Allure last September. "We've had tremendous ups and scary downs, especially through COVID and through the direct-to-consumer model changing so much."
She continued, "It takes a lot of capital and a lot of grit and a lot of stamina and a lot of being able to withstand the storms, whether that's people trying to take you down or a bank crisis or anything in between. I just think it takes a certain perseverance that I definitely have."