Gwyneth Paltrow and Jacob Elordi sat together for a Variety interview, and the former reflected on the height of her early Hollywood career, admitting she felt a deep sense of loneliness in her 20s. For Paltrow, it didn’t feel as glamorous as it appeared. Her honesty adds a new layer to her persona, one she seems more than ready to share with the world.
Gwyneth Paltrow gets candid about feeling ‘a lot of loneliness’ in her 20s
In a new conversation for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, Gwyneth Paltrow opened up to Jacob Elordi about the emotional cost of her fast rise to fame in the 1990s, sharing that her 20s consisted of pressure, nonstop work, and a deep sense of loneliness. Paltrow, now 53, explained that even while achieving milestone after milestone, something felt off.
She said, “I think I felt, you know, a lot of loneliness when I was doing it in my 20s,” describing that period as one where she “didn’t know myself really well yet. And I was traveling all the time.”
The Oscar-winner’s early success was remarkable. At just 26, she won the Academy Award for “Shakespeare in Love.” However, she said the pace and pressure left little room for personal growth, and eventually, taking a step back became necessary. She told Elordi, “I kind of needed to grow up and understand really who I was,” adding that she found many of those answers when she began focusing on her family.
Ultimately, Paltrow’s return to acting came unexpectedly with Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme.” She said the timing lined up with a personal turning point as her children grew older, describing meeting Safdie and connecting with the project as a moment that reignited her creative spark.
Reflecting on everything, from her early success to the loneliness and reinvention, Gwyneth Paltrow’s comments reveal that her journey has been far more complex than the polished image of her 20s suggested.
