Gwyneth Paltrow Says She ‘Wanted to Be’ an Actor Like Her Mother Blythe Danner as a Kid

Gwyneth Paltrow credits her mother, Blythe Danner, with inspiring her own acting career.

The GOOP founder, 51, got candid about her early years as an actress during a discussion at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia, when she shared with “In Conversation” host Jomana Al-Rashid that her mother played an important role in how understood acting early.

“My mother is an actress. She was mainly engaged in theater. And so I grew up as a little girl watching her rehearsals and running around the theater,” Paltrow said Diversity.

“My mother would even say that she always felt a little insecure,” she added. “When she was on stage, she was the most powerful, integrated force of nature I had ever seen. And that’s what I wanted to be.”

Gwyneth Paltrow appears at the 2023 Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia.

Daniele Venturelli/Getty

Blythe Danner reveals private battle with same cancer that killed her husband Bruce Paltrow: ‘I feel lucky to be alive’

Paltrow’s mother, 80, has won Emmy and Tony awards for her work in theater and television, notably starring in projects such as Meet the parents and Will & Grace.

Paltrow has previously spoken openly about her admiration for Danner. In 2021, she celebrated her mother’s birthday with a heartfelt tribute on Instagram, calling her a “beautiful creature.”

“She mixes words and names in the funniest and most unique way,” Paltrow wrote in the post. “She is full of life and incredibly strong. She loves her grandchildren more than anything in the world. She loves Bill Evans, eating leftovers and keeping herself company.”

The Marvel student added that she admires “so many things about” her mother, who welcomed Paltrow in 1972 with husband Bruce Paltrow, who died in 2002.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Blythe Danner.

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Michael Kors

3 generations! Gwyneth Paltrow shines with mother Blythe Danner and daughter Apple Martin

Elsewhere during Paltrow’s Red Sea conversation, she detailed what she learned from another longtime actress, Jessica Lange, with whom she worked on Silence in 1998.

Although she described the film she made with Lange as “really, really awful,” Paltrow explained that she still took away a lot from “watching her” on set.

She had such an interesting style and technique that she had developed over all these years, she said. “And so some people like it… I think about all these amazing people I got to work with and see all the different ways, and then I made my own techniques.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Paltrow also detailed some of her work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, sharing that in 2008, Iron man directed by Jon Favreau was pitched to her “as if she were doing an indie film.” Since then, the actress has appeared as Pepper Potts in a total of seven films.

“They said it would feel like you were making an indie film. We’re going to have fun, and you don’t have to be in too much action anyway,” she said. “So I thought, ‘Oh, okay.’ And we had such a good time. We improvised almost every scene of that film. We’d write it in the morning in Jon’s trailer, and it was like we did it [an indie] movie.”

“Then the movie was such a hit that we didn’t make them like that anymore. To be honest, I stopped watching them at one point. I never saw Game over. I’ve never seen any of this. I can’t follow. I probably should at some point,” Paltrow said.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education