Gwyneth Paltrow is taking her critically acclaimed stage performance to the big screen in Proof, just released nationwide. She talks about her excitement at her second pregnancy - and tells Eileen Condon why she and Chris Martin are not as dull as people think
Actress Gwyneth Paltrow is blossoming, not least because of her little girl Apple, the two-year old who has completely transformed her life.
The reason the willowy star has never looked better is that she's pregnant with her second child. What's more, the normally reticent Gwyneth simply can't wait to tell you that motherhood is her favourite role of all. "I feel my main responsibility is being a parent now," says the Oscar-winning star. "Having Apple changed everything for me. It's completely changed the way I see the world. I cannot believe the way my life has turned around. I have a great husband, a beautiful daughter and another baby on the way. I feel very, very fortunate."
In fact the actress, who is married to Chris Martin, lead singer of Brit band Coldplay, says she's never been happier."I am truly happy," she says flicking back a lock of her glossy blond hair. "I feel very lucky that I've been blessed with the members of my family that I have. It's just a great feeling that you have cracked the mystery of life and that it's about love and the love of a child."
But Gwyneth's present joy is a far cry from life just a few years ago.
Though she seemed to have the world at her feet after winning an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love and starring in a succession of box office hits such as The Talented Mr Ripley, Emma and Sliding Doors, the 33-year-old admits she was desperately unhappy.
"I worked the whole of my 20s, incessantly, and by the time I got to 29, the shine had really worn off.
"I was really kind of disenchanted with the whole acting process. I think that I had done too many things. And I had been talked into doing some things that I didn't want to do and talked out of doing things that I wanted to do.
"I made some mistakes and worked with some directors that I just didn't feel totally inspired by, and it was like, 'Why am I doing this?'
"I got to a place where I just thought, 'Oh I've just had it with this,' and that's when I took a little time off."
Ironically, it was during that downtime that the actress agreed to do a small role in the West End play Proof. It turned out to be the catalyst she needed to fall back in love with her work.
"The challenge of appearing nightly before a sophisticated London audience was the jolt I needed," she recalls. "I did the play and then thought, 'Oh, wait a minute, I remember why I do this. I remember I'm in love with the process and I'm in love with being able to create something and be an actor'."
And that's why, four years on, the talented actress jumped at the chance to recreate her stage role in the big screen version of Proof.
"It was something I definitely wanted to do because I enjoyed doing the play tremendously. It was such a special experience for me, and I was so attached to the material and had such an amazing experience that I was determined to try to make it work as a film," she says.
In the film, Gwyneth stars alongside Jake Gyllenhaal as young mathematical genius, Catherine, who is terrified she may have inherited the mental illness suffered by her late father, (Anthony Hopkins).
The role was especially poignant for the actress, as her own beloved father, Bruce, died just before filming began.
"When I did the play my father was still alive but he had been very ill with cancer and we thought he was in remission.
"In the play, Catherine has the fear of, 'is her father's schizophrenia going to come back' and with me it was the fear of 'is my father's cancer going to come back?'
"So it was a kind of parallel and then when I went to do the movie, he had died and so I was in the reality of the grief of it. But it was kind of comforting in a way because you feel like you are with someone who is going through the same things that you are and it's kind of cathartic."
But though Gwyneth says Proof, both the play and the movie, have renewed her zest for acting, she'll never be a workaholic again.
"Now I have a child I'm much choosier because I think it's really got to be the right thing. To leave your baby for that many hours every day, it's too heartbreaking," she explains.
"These days I don't make money from acting because I only do the things I want to do. Besides, I never made Julia Roberts' kind of money."
The star says she's content with a simple and more relaxed lifestyle which she has discovered since settling in London after her marriage in 2004.
"In America there is an in incessant drive to be number one and in London it's just different," she says. "None of my friends here are in showbusiness and nobody really cares what I do, it's such a nice, civilised place to spend time in."
And as for the constant accusations that she and Chris are the most boring couple in showbusiness?
"We're not looking for other things in life. We like our house, we like our kid, we like our friends," she says. "I've achieved everything I want to and at this point in life I feel as if I have a real life. It's like I won the lottery."
Source: Various
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