Gwyneth Paltrow was at London’s Dorchester Hotel recently to talk about her latest film Proof. Close-Up Film writer Simon Gray reports.
The film depends upon a tremendous amount of emotional energy from you. Were you completely and utterly drained at the end of it even though you’d been through the same process or something similar by doing it on stage?
Yes. I was completely and utterly exhausted by the process. When I was doing the play, it was also tiring and I was using up absolutely all of my resources – but only for a two-hour period in the evening and then it was finished. Also there was only one trajectory, one arc, from beginning to end. There were some really emotional bits, but you got through them and that was that. But what I found so difficult about the film was that we would be doing one scene that was super-emotional and we would be doing it all day long – there was no end to it. It was hard to be in that state for hours and hours at a time.
Given that the film deals with that which we inherit from our parents, was there any doubt that you would enter the same profession as your parents? And what does that hold for the future of your own daughter?
My parents were gently discouraging of me becoming an actor. They never really wanted me to do it. My mother always wanted me to do something more academic or more noble. But it was just in there: I wanted to do it from the moment I knew what it was. My father said he never remembered a time when I didn’t want to be an actor. In some families, there are children who are absolutely disinterested in what their parents do; and then there are some that really connect with it – not only in this kind of work, but in accounting or physics or whatever. So in my mind there was never any doubt that I was going to act. I don’t know where it came from but I always had a strong, burning desire to do it.
Will that be carried on to the next generation? Are there signs there already?
I have no idea. My daughter can be quite dramatic. [Laughs.] I’ll support her whatever she wants to do. Sometimes I think there’s more of a chance that she’ll do something like this because of her family; but sometimes I think she might completely want to do something else. I just want to be supportive of her.
Do you feel your relationship in the film with your screen father compares in any way with your own father?
I think the only way it compares is that my father and I in real life understood each other very, very well. We were similar creatures, like Catherine and her father. There’s a lot of love between them. I think the similarities end there. My father was very much my parent-figure and I think Catherine is her father’s guardian in many ways.
How much trepidation, if any, did you have when you knew you were going to be working with Anthony Hopkins. Do you feel that working opposite him raised your game?
Probably in any other circumstances I would have felt more trepidation about it but, because I had done the play and because I was so well-prepared, I felt – not confident, exactly – I felt like I knew what I was doing and what my approach was; I knew the words, I knew the character very well. I was really excited about it. I admire him so much. I think he has so much power as an actor. He’s a very lovely guy and we had a really great chemistry together. I definitely think it raises the game any time you work with someone who is better than you and has been doing it longer than you. I felt very lucky to work with him.
Unlike some of our showbiz knights, Anthony Hopkins doesn’t make a fuss about being ‘Sir Anthony’. Were you aware of that or did you automatically just call him Tony – did you have to make sure what the protocol was?
I called him Sir A. Half way between proper and casual!
The film deals with genius in this particular branch of mathematics. Genius happens in all sorts of professions, though rarely. Have you ever felt that you have been in the presence of a great genius or worked with one or is there somebody in your profession you admire who you’d put up on that pedestal?
I probably have less stringent criteria than you would. I’ve come into contact with people I would put into that category. [pause] Like Phillip Seymour Hoffman. [pause] Like Meryl Streep, especially in her older films. I find there are a lot of times when you work with somebody really good, like Hope Davis in this film, or John C Reilly, and you find yourself in the presence of a moment of genius – not that this person is categorically a genius, but you’re witnessing something that’s really profound and unique. I think genius is a very difficult thing to quantify unless you’re talking about something like math, something that is quantifiable. I mean, Ben Stiller’s a genius in his own way. Owen Wilson is a genius in his own way. My margins are probably wider than yours are.
Talking of mathematics, were you any good at that at school?
I was really, really bad.
Did you cheat?
NO! Are you crazy. My father would have killed me. No way! I’m sure I wanted to but I never had the guts. No, I was terrible. Especially geometry, for some reason. When do you ever use that in life?
You just portrayed Peggy Lee in the Truman Capote film. She was a genius in song. How difficult was that for you?
Actually, I’m in the film for about two minutes. All I’m doing is singing a song.
‘What Is This Thing Called Love?’ I think they might change my name from Peggy Lee to something else because I don’t look like her.
You’re down on IMDB as Peggy Lee. You’re also down as Marlene Dietrich. Are you indeed going to be that bombshell?
Well…the script is being developed and we’re just waiting to get the script right basically. Hopefully I will play her.
Did John Madden have to fight the studio for the rather understated ending and not have a big Hollywood finish where you become famous for the proof?
I think because the play won the Pulitzer prize and it’s a highly-regarded play in America, you’re safe from that sort of tinkering which happens all the time. I’ve been in films that have been ruined from that kind of thing. Luckily, it was safe – it would be like trying to change the ending to The Cherry Orchard or something where everybody knows how it ends. You have to be as faithful to it as you can. But it happens – the audience is so used to being spoon-fed a perfect completion, everything tied up in a bow. So if a film ends ambiguously, they say: what is this, what do we make of this? Not everybody. But [the studio] worries that that will be all for the Americans in shopping malls. I would personally rather a film make less money but be true to what it is. I think I’m in the minority in Hollywood.
Having performed the role onstage, did you make any changes to the way you saw Catherine when it came to the film?
I think that doing the play was such an amazingly intense experience and I spent such a long time being with Catherine, thinking about her, studying her and being in her skin that by the time we got to do the film I felt very comfortable with her, very at one with her and that I understood her experience. I felt very blessed to try and do it in two different media. It’s hard for me to see how my performance shifted from one to the other because obviously I’m so close to it. When John Madden talked about it, he said it was very similar in terms of how I did it on stage and how it was filmed. It was strange and very exhilarating to do the film after the play, but it made me feel that I never rehearse anything enough! How can I ever do a film again without doing the play of it first?
You said you were rubbish at mathematics at school. What were you good at back then?
I was good at English and History and Art. I was actually not bad at some science but chemistry and calculus I was terrible at. I just couldn’t process it. But the Arts, I was better at.
Did you have any passions back then?
You know…smoking and drinking coffee with my friends.
We talked earlier about how emotionally challenging this film was to make. How do you manage to switch off and relax after such an intense piece of work?
I actually didn’t really get much of a chance to do that when I was doing this film because I was very much in the thick of it. The first anniversary of my father’s death was right in the middle of shooting and I wasn’t in a great place emotionally in my real life. I was pretty bereft and I was newly pregnant and I felt really, really sick. So it wasn’t like, the day’s done, I’m going out to a nice meal or something. I couldn’t even have a glass of wine. I would just go back to my hotel room and have a grilled cheese sandwich and watch something depressing on television.
How did you cope with all that?
I have to say it was hard. Especially when we got back to England to shot all the interiors it was 100 degrees on set and it was really difficult. Also the girl who always does my hair and the girl who always does my make-up, they were both pregnant too. So we were all miserable, sick girls. But at least we had each other.
Are there any other roles you’ve performed on stage that you’d like to revisit on the screen?
I did a version of As You Like It at the Williamstown Theater Festival that I would like to do again as a play, but I don’t know whether I’d want to do it as a film. You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to do a musical on stage at a subsidised rep and then do a film of it. That would be fantastic to do.
Is there anyone you’d like to join you in that quest, anyone you’d like to play alongside?
I’d like to do a musical with Jack Black.
You’ve spent so much time over here that you’re almost an honorary Brit. Do you feel comfortable living and working in London?
Yes.Very. I’ve definitely worked here more than any other city in the world. I think I’ve done seven projects here. I’m very happy here. I really like the way that the film industry works here. Everybody cares. When you do something in L.A. you really feel the crew punching the clock. In London, you know, the runners are all making short films. It’s a different approach. I like that there isn’t this big capitalist feeling here. It’s like people are striving to make things that are good or worthwhile or interesting whereas in America a lot of the time it feels like it’s our biggest export. So I always feel really lucky when I get to do a film in London or in this country. I really love living here. It’s a very nice, civilized life. You know in America, the whole psychology of achieving, achieving, achieving and people talking about money at dinner parties – I just find it, kind of, not where I am right now.
This is one of several collaborations with John Madden. How is he to work with? Is there something about him that is particularly appealing that keeps you coming back for more?
He’s super-intelligent. I mean he’s a very intellectual guy, very well-educated, but he’s also emotionally very intelligent. He’s a real family man; he’s very, very warm. He’s very specific and exacting in what he wants from his actors. Working with him is a very fulfilling experience. We collaborate well together. I hope we’ll work together again some day. I think he’s really fantastic.
There’s a tremendous amount of interest in you in the British press… how do you deal with that?
I just shut it out. I don’t read those weekly magazines and I don’t read tabloids. I keep things a little more insulated. I don’t understand what the fascination is. People tell me the stuff they’d read that says I’m exorcising my house for a ghost or that I have a GPS satellite thing in my bag to watch my baby while she’s sleeping – and I think, did you read this in a newspaper? It’s just very strange. To be honest, it makes me feel sad for the people who are coming up with it – it can’t be very good for their karma. It depresses me to think of people trying to sell papers by drudging up bad things. It makes me feel sad for them.
Is there any aspect of British life you’ve embraced in a way that has surprised you – like warm beer, curry or Coronation Street?
I don’t like my beer warm, but I don’t drink it as cold as I used to. But then if you told me five years ago that I would be watching re-runs of The Two Ronnies, I’d have said you were clinically insane! And I eat curry all the time.
Guy Ritchie has said in public that he’s not a big fan of Madonna’s music. I wonder if you’re a fan of Coldplay [Gwyneth is married to Coldplay’s frontman Chris Martin] and what other music do you listen to?
My daughter is obsessed with Coldplay, so we listen to it a lot. I like alternative music basically. I like The Go-Team. I like Goldfrapp. Unlike Guy Ritchie, I’m a fan of Madonna – my daughter is obsessed with ‘Hung Up’, the single. She calls it ‘So Slowly’! We listen to it on replay.
Simon Gray
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