It's an icy day in London, but inside Casa Paltrow (painted so many sensuous shades of gray) in the north of the city, a fire roars, and our honey-limbed chatelaine pads about barefoot. She's dressed in defiance of the local climate—in a black tissue tee and green leggings (both prototypes from her burgeoning Goop mail-order business). Around her neck is a Jennifer Meyer gold chain that spells out MUM in funky fat type (another Goop collaboration). A dash of daring is provided by a chunky gold chain belonging to her seven-year-old son, Moses, from the downtown hipster boutique Blue & Cream in New York. "He's obsessed with hip-hop and wanted a chain like his Uncle Jay," she says with a smile, meaning, of course, Mr. Z.
Having survived her 10th London winter (she got through January by assigning it "international month," and amusing Moses and his big sister, Apple, 9, with a visiting Italian chef, Japanese anime screenings, and hand-rolled-sushi lessons, no less), Paltrow admits that her dreams of relocating the family to their recently acquired residence in Brentwood, California, are becoming ever more urgent. "Just to have my kids be in the sun every day—picking avocados, going for a swim," she says. "Even for two years or something, and come back when they go to senior school."
Paltrow turned 40 last fall, and after subjecting her life to a searing stock-taking, she says she feels on the cusp of change. "I'm at quite a pivotal point: Do I want to go back more into films? Do I want another child? Do I want to move back to the States?" Her wide blue-gray eyes flash me a look of amused self-knowledge. "You can call me a lot of things, but you can't call me complacent!"
With a movie résumé bulging with everything from her Oscar-winning turn in Shakespeare in Love to everyone's favorite indie princess, the kohl-eyed Margot, in The Royal Tenenbaums, Paltrow is in the habit of choosing her acting gigs very strategically these days, having found a sort of lifestyle G-spot, combining the roles of school-run-ready parent and Web entrepreneur, with her site, Goop, with part-time movie star. Funnily enough (given her impeccable art-house pedigree), it's the blockbusting Iron Man franchise that has facilitated this life-work balance over the past five years. Thanks to her adventures in superhero territory, she and the kids can indulge in a dose of Hollywood sunshine during filming (beach rental, tutors, et cetera). And while Moses experiences the kind of nirvana that only a seven-year-old boy can when visiting a superhero on set ("I mean, he is obsessed"), Ms. Paltrow gets to relish some sparky thespian chemistry with her good friend Robert Downey Jr.
"It's very alive. It doesn't matter if we're talking about robots or aliens, it doesn't matter if it's Shakespeare, if you're working with someone of that quality, it's very invigorating as an artist," she explains. And for Iron Man 3, out this month, her flame-haired alter ego, Pepper Potts, gets to be a little more bodaciously kick-***: "There's a portion of the movie where something bad happens to me, and I lose clothes along the way, so essentially I'm wearing a bra and trousers." Self-deprecating pause. "There are certain requirements, but luckily I have a good base because I work out often. I just had to not eat pasta and french fries the night before shooting—which I'm terrible at doing."
Embracing exercise and taking back control of her body after the physical and emotional impact of two children (she has spoken in the past about the postpartum depression she experienced after Moses's birth) famously revolutionized her life. Her fitness guru, Tracy Anderson ("She is like my God!"), whom Paltrow met in 2006, is now a business partner, with the actress an investor in Anderson's growing exercise empire. Sitting across from her today at her art-book-laden coffee table, I can report that she looks better in person than she has on any of our previous encounters. "I really used to be bad with products, but now I exfoliate every night and use a lot of organic oils on my face," she confides. (She's a Sonya Dakar fan.) "And I have a great dermatologist in L.A. who gave me this amazing laser the last time I was there. It's called Thermage. It's not invasive. I went out to dinner right afterward and I didn't look crazy, but it's quite painful. It feels like someone's smacking your face with a rubber band that has an electric shock in it. But I would do it again, because I feel like it took five years off my face."
As it happens, Paltrow and I share a London facialist (holistic queen Vaishaly Patel), which leads to talk of the lifestyle contradictions presented by the high-tech temptations of the beauty business. "I think it's a mix," she says honestly. "You know, I use organic products, but I get lasers. It's what makes life interesting, finding the balance between cigarettes and tofu.
"I've probably tried everything," she continues. "I would be scared to go under the knife, but you know, talk to me when I'm 50. I'll try anything. Except I won't do Botox again, because I looked crazy. I looked like Joan Rivers!"
There's something refreshingly frank and fearless about this new fifth-decade Gwyneth. "I don't hold on to fear as much as I used to, because I've learned a lot about genuinely not caring what strangers think about me," she says. "It's very liberating. It's very empowering, and I've learned a lot of that from Jay—Shawn Carter—Z, because his approach to life is very internal. It's a very good lesson to learn."
Such candor, of course, makes for excellent company, and our conversation zips from life's entertaining trivialities to the poignant and profound: Her favorite TV shows: "New Girl and Homeland." Guilty pleasure: "My one light American Spirit that I smoke once a week, on Saturday night." Her regret: "Not finding my voice earlier in life."
On 10 years with Coldplay rocker Chris Martin: "We are growing into very similar people. It's cool, it's good. It's not always easy, though!"
It seems perfectly fitting that one of the producing projects she has brewing is a "very outrageous girl comedy. I want to be challenged, and I want to have fun. I would love to do movies with friends and laugh and have a good time, or do something with a high degree of difficulty like 33 Days," she says, referencing the in-development Picasso biopic in which she plays French artist Dora Maar opposite Antonio Banderas, in Spanish.
Comedywise, we've seen Paltrow get her funny on recently with the lo-fi rap parody she filmed with her friend (and sometime London houseguest) Cameron Diaz as they rap-serenaded mutual pal Chelsea Handler. Does she hold any theories about the current dame-centered revolution in American comedy? "Well, women are huge consumers of entertainment—they love movies, they love TV, and now I think with the success of something like Bridesmaids, where the audience is women but because there are diarrhea jokes, their husbands or boyfriends will go, it sort of opens things up. Women can be outrageous, and it's commercial."
Woman power: I note that over the years, several of her well-known girlfriends, from Liv Tyler to Kate Hudson to the Brit interior designer and former Coldplay wife Jo Berryman, have told me how Paltrow plays the role of teacher and adviser in their lives. As the tabloids like to tell it, she is some kind of an unofficial life coach to Cameron Diaz, reportedly advising her, inter alia, to forgo sexual liaisons in a bid to achieve domestic stability. At this last bit, Paltrow gives a hearty laugh before answering: "I think that women, especially women in my job, come to me because they know I'm very loving and nonjudgmental and I'm not competitive, and I've been through a lot. And so they come round to talk about their stuff. I'm a bit of a mother hen. Everyone wants a home-cooked meal and to come over and talk about where they are in their life," she says. "I love it, and I feel that I have the most incredible women friends, some who are super famous, some who I've had since I was four years old. I love it that people will call me up and say, 'What do you think about this?,' because my dad was very much that person for everyone in his life. So I feel like I'm carrying on my dad's spirit in that way."
In the absence of Bruce Paltrow, the producer/director and all-round charismatic mensch who passed away in 2002, I wonder, who is now the mentor in Gwyneth's life? "It's so funny you ask that," she says, explaining that, as a 40th-birthday present to herself, she booked a three-day solo trip to a retreat in Sedona, Arizona—the kind of "me-time" indulgence she has not allowed herself since Apple's birth. "Every day I set an intention, and on the third day I said, 'I would like some guidance in terms of these life decisions that are coming up.' I'll never forget it. I was starting to hike up the Red Rocks, and honestly, it was as if I'd heard the rock say: 'You have the answers. You are your teacher.' I thought I was having an auditory hallucination."
And so … what's next? The umbilical pull of L.A., where she spent her early childhood? Expanding the Paltrow–Martin brood? "There are some films that I want to do, and I love my business and I want to expand that a lot. We'll sort of see. I mean, if I want to have another kid, I gotta kind of get on it."
We discuss the domestic cocoon of new motherhood—and weighing the option of climbing back into the maternal nest. "But then you see a baby and you smell a baby!" she says, almost squealing. "And you're like, 'Yep, I do.' I don't know. It's a very big decision, so we'll see. Anyway, I'm not doing it this month!"
US L'Officiel December 2025/January 2026 : Michelle Yeoh by Domen & Van De Velde (2 Viewers)
