Gwyneth Paltrow says her 1999 Oscar win gave her an 'identity crisis': 'It's so disorienting'
Gwyneth Paltrow is looking back at the "disorienting" feeling of earning an Academy Award for Best Actress for her leading role as Viola de Lesseps in Shakespeare in Love.
The star-turned-lifestyle-guru said her win at the 1999 ceremony gave her "a bit of an identity crisis" while on Wednesday's episode of Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast. "[When] you win the biggest prize, like, what are you supposed to do? And where are you supposed to go?" Paltrow, who was 26 at the time, said. "It was hard, the amount of attention that you receive on a night like that and the weeks following."
Paltrow called the experience "disorienting" and "really unhealthy," adding, "I was like, 'This is crazy. I don't know what to do. I don't know which way is up.' It was a lot."
She continued, "Not that I would give it back or anything. It was an amazing experience, but it kind of called a lot of things into question for me."
The actress, who famously broke down in tears in her acceptance speech while thanking her parents, Blythe Danner and Bruce Paltrow, also recalled the vitriol of the British press after her win. "I felt a real pivot on that night because I felt like up until that moment, everybody was kind of rooting for me in a way," Paltrow said. "And then when I won, it was like too much, and I could feel a real turn."
She said the press was "horrible" to her, but what they didn't know was that her father had fallen ill with cancer (he would died in 2002 at the age of 58).
"He was really debilitated," Paltrow said. "It was just this totally overwhelming moment."
"And, you know, I was 26," she continued. "I cried and people were so mean about it and I just thought, 'Wow, there's this big energy shift that's happening. I think I'm going to have to learn to be less openhearted and much more protective of myself and filter people out better.'"
During the expansive interview, Paltrow also chatted about her famous exes Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck (describing the latter as "technically excellent" at sex), her conscious uncoupling from Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, her lifestyle empire Goop, and nepo babies. Listen to the episode above.
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