Gwyneth Paltrow Trivia | 100 facts about the famous actress

Gwyneth Paltrow is an American actress and businesswoman. She’s the recipient of various accolades including an Academy Award & a Golden Globe Award.

Let’s find out more about the famous actress!

1. Her full name is Gwyneth Kate Paltrow.
2. She was born on September 27th, 1972 and is an American actress and businesswoman.
3. Her star sign is Libra.
4. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
5. Gwyneth Paltrow gained notice for her early work in films such as Seven (1995), Emma (1996), Sliding Doors (1998), and A Perfect Murder (1998).
6. She garnered wider acclaim for her performance as Viola de Lesseps in the historical romance Shakespeare in Love (1998) which won her several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actress.
7. After becoming a parent in 2004, Paltrow significantly reduced her acting workload. She made occasional appearances in films, such as the drama Proof (2005).
8. In addition, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her guest role as Holly Holliday on the Fox musical television series Glee in 2011. From 2008 to 2019, she portrayed Pepper Potts in the MCU.
9. Beginning in 1995, Paltrow has been the face of Estée Lauder’s Pleasures perfume; she was previously the face of the American fashion brand Coach.
10. She is the founder and CEO of the lifestyle company Goop, which has been criticized for promoting pseudoscience, and has authored several cookbooks.
11. Attended and graduated from the Spence School in New York City (1990).
12. Voted “Most Stuck-up” in Movieline magazine’s 100 Most. [October 1998]
13. (August 15, 1998) Gave $21,000 watch to boyfriend Ben Affleck as a birthday present.
14. Named one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World (1998).
15. Engaged to actor Brad Pitt on December 20, 1996. She broke her much publicized engagement in 1997, citing the fact that neither she nor Pitt felt that they could pursue their respective careers and at the same time maintain a happy marriage. They remain good friends.
16. Confirmed as the next Calvin Klein model (1996).
17. Attended the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) for one year as an Art History major.
18. After spending a time in her early teens in Talavera De la Reina, Toledo, Spain, she can speak fairly good Spanish.
19. Turned down the role of Emma Peel in the movie The Avengers (1998), which went to Uma Thurman.
20. Met with James Cameron for the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic (1997), which went to Kate Winslet.
21. Spends Thanksgiving every year with Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw at their home in the Hamptons.
22. As part of research for her role as an obese woman in Shallow Hal (2001), wore the 200-pound latex “fat” suit she used for the film to a bar where people refused to make eye contact with her and treated her rudely. She said that this experience made her saddened by the injustice faced by overweight people in society.
23. Has been friends with Maya Rudolph (of Saturday Night Live (1975) fame) since she was seven.
24. Practices yoga and sticks to a macrobiotic diet.
25. Sister of Jake Paltrow.
26. Did her own singing in the comedy-drama movie Duets (2000).
27. Attended Crossroads High School in Santa Monica, California for one year.
28. (April 13, 2003) Attended the ceremony in Talavera De la Reina, Toledo, Spain, in which she was named “adopted daughter”. She first visited the town as a young schoolgirl and has since frequently returned there, enamored – she says – of the people, the food and the countryside.
29. Has played Thomas Jefferson’s daughter in Jefferson in Paris (1995). Her mother, Blythe Danner, played Jefferson’s wife, Martha, in 1776 (1972), just before Gwyneth was conceived. In the Ken Burns miniseries, Thomas Jefferson (1997), she played his granddaughter.
30. Nominated for a London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in “Proof”, performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London, England (2002).
31. She and her husband Chris Martin purchased Kate Winslet’s North London home in Belsize Park.
32. Is the daughter of Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner. Gwyneth’s paternal grandparents, Arnold P. Paltrow and Dorothy Weigert, were both from Jewish families from Eastern and Central Europe (Poland, Russia, Belarus and Lithuania), and Gwyneth’s father had many generations of rabbis in the family tree. Gwyneth’s maternal grandparents were Harry Earl Danner and Katherine M. Kile, and Gwyneth’s mother is of German, with smaller amounts of English and Irish, descent. Some of her mother’s ancestors lived in Barbados.
33. Her mother, Blythe Danner, was about five months pregnant with the future actress when she appeared in Columbo: Étude in Black (1972). The episode also starred John Cassavetes, and aired during the series’ first season.
34. Her name can be heard over the P.A. system in many episodes of the medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982). Gwyneth’s father, Bruce Paltrow, was the producer of the series.
35. Turned down the role of Rachel Keller in The Ring (2002), which went to Naomi Watts.
36. Is best friends with Madonna.
37. Attended St. Augustine by the Sea (where she met Maya Rudolph) in Los Angeles and the Spence School in New York City.
38. Met husband Chris Martin when she attended his band’s (Coldplay’s) concert. [October 2002]
39. She does not employ a nanny to take care of her daughter, a rarity among actors in the film business.
40. Signed a contact with Estée Lauder for $10 million to promote its new line of fragrance, “Pleasures”.
41. Her son, Moses Martin, is named after a song Chris Martin wrote for her and appears on Coldplay’s album “Live 2003”. Moses is also her father’s Hebrew name.
42. She speaks French quite well, having spent a summer in Paris when in her childhood.
43. Good friends with Helena Christensen, who was one of the first people to visit Gwyneth in the hospital, after she gave birth to her son, Moses Martin (Moses Bruce Anthony Martin).
44. Longtime close friends with actress Mary Wigmore, who also appeared (albeit briefly) in Paltrow’s films The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and Shallow Hal (2001).
45. Was the Maid of Honor at Madonna’s wedding to Guy Ritchie.
46. Her godfather Steven Spielberg is also the godfather of Drew Barrymore.
47. Godparents of her daughter, Apple Martin, are Simon Pegg, Mary Wigmore, and Chris Martin’s Coldplay bandmate, Jon Buckland.
48. Was originally signed on for the role of Ava Gardner in The Aviator (2004), but dropped out. The role went to Kate Beckinsale.
49. Auditioned for the role of Vickie Miner in Reality Bites (1994), which went to Janeane Garofalo.
50. She earns $3 million per year endorsing Estée Lauder on television and in print advertisements.
51. Attended Brown Ledge Summer Camp in Vermont.
52. When she played Sharon Stone on Saturday Night Live (1975), Stone felt offended and criticized her performance (1999).
53. Had suffered post-partum depression following the birth of her son, Moses Martin on April 15, 2008.
54. Attended the Spence School in Manhattan, an elite private girls’ school that was also attended by Emmy Rossum and Kerry Washington.
55. Attended the 55th Tony Awards. She can be seen dancing with the revival cast of “The Rocky Horror Show” during “The Time Warp”.
56. Ambassador for the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF)’s Women’s Cancer Research Fund (2008).
57. Gwyneth’s brother, Jake Paltrow’s birthday is a day before hers (9/26 and 9/27, respectively).
58. Friends with Cameron Diaz, Stella McCartney, Liv Tyler, Reese Witherspoon, Tracy Anderson and Kate Hudson.
59. Returned to work ten months after giving birth to her daughter, Apple Martin, in order to begin filming Running with Scissors (2006).
60. Was six months pregnant with her son Moses Martin when she completed filming The Good Night (2007) and returned to work eleven months after giving birth, in order to begin filming Iron Man (2008).
61. Two of her ex-boyfriends have been named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine: Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck.
62. Replaced Charlize Theron in the role of Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl (2015), but after dropping out of the project herself she was replaced by Alicia Vikander.
63. She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6931 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December 13, 2010. She was accompanied by Tim McGraw, her Country Strong (2010) co-star Faith Hill, and Glee (2009) co-star Matthew Morrison.
64. Second cousin of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured in the 2011 Tucson, Arizona shooting. Their fathers are first cousins.
65. (March 26, 2011) Was in attendance at the wedding of Reese Witherspoon to Jim Toth.
66. Auditioned for the role of Kelly Taylor on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990), which went to Jennie Garth.
67. Auditioned for the role of Susannah Fincannon in Legends of the Fall (1994). She lost the role to Julia Ormond, but Brad Pitt was so impressed with Gwyneth that he later hand-picked her to play his wife in Se7en (1995).
68. Is lifelong friends with Norman Lloyd, who knew her mother, Blythe Danner, for exactly 40 years, right around the same time she was born.
69. Has two children with her ex-husband Chris Martin – a daughter Apple Martin (Apple Blythe Alison Martin; b. May 14, 2004) and a son Moses Martin (Moses Bruce Anthony Martin; b. April 8, 2006).
70. Revealed that she named her daughter Apple, because apples are whole, sweet and crisp. The baby’s middle name honors her grandmothers, Blythe Danner and Alison Martin.
71. (March 17, 2013) Admitted that she had miscarried her future third child with her now estranged husband Chris Martin and almost died.
72. (March 25, 2014) Separated from her husband of 10 years Chris Martin.
73. Was the 115th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love (1998) at The 71st Annual Academy Awards (1999) on March 21, 1999.
74. Delivered her daughter Apple naturally after a 70-hour long labor but delivered her son Moses via Caesarean section out of fear of having another long labor.
75. Is one of 15 Oscar-winning actresses to have been born in the state of California. The others are Fay Bainter, Gloria Grahame, Jo Van Fleet, Liza Minnelli, Tatum O’Neal, Diane Keaton, Sally Field, Anjelica Huston, Cher, Jodie Foster, Helen Hunt, Angelina Jolie, Marcia Gay Harden and Brie Larson.
76. Was offered a chance to be a roaster for “The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe”, but declined.
77. Is one of 12 actresses who won the Best Actress Oscar for a movie that also won the Best Picture Oscar (she won for Shakespeare in Love (1998)). The others are Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night (1934), Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind (1939), Greer Garson for Mrs. Miniver (1942), Louise Fletcher for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977), Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment (1983), Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Frances McDormand for Nomadland (2020).
78. Was supposed to star in She’s Out of My League (2010) but backed out due to production delays. Alice Eve replaced her.
79. Greatly admires Johnny Depp. She worked with him on Mortdecai (2015).
80. As a teenage model, she appeared in a 1991 ad urging high school kids to use condoms.
81. Is one of 25 actresses who have received an Academy Award for their performance in a comedy; hers being for Shakespeare in Love (1998). The others in chronological order, are: Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night (1934)), Loretta Young (The Farmer’s Daughter (1947)), Josephine Hull (Harvey (1950)), Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday (1950)), Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday (1953)), Goldie Hawn (Cactus Flower (1969)), Glenda Jackson (A Touch of Class (1973)), Lee Grant (Shampoo (1975)), Diane Keaton (Annie Hall (1977)), Maggie Smith (California Suite (1978)), Mary Steenburgen (Melvin and Howard (1980)), Jessica Lange (Tootsie (1982)), Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck (1987)), Cher (Moonstruck (1987)), Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy (1989)), Mercedes Ruehl (The Fisher King (1991)), Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny (1992)), Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway (1994)), Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite (1995)), Frances McDormand (Fargo (1996)), Helen Hunt (As Good as It Gets (1997)), Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love (1998)), Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)), and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook (2012)).
82. Is one of 14 actresses to have won both the Best Actress Academy Award and the Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical Golden Globe for the same performance; hers being for Shakespeare in Love (1998). The others, in chronological order, are: Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950), Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins (1964), Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl (1968), Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972), Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class (1973), Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977), Sissy Spacek for Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Cher for Moonstruck (1987), Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Helen Hunt for As Good as It Gets (1997), Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (2005), Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose (2007), and Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
83. She was offered the role of Emma Peel in The Avengers (1998), which she turned down. Coincidentally, she later played Pepper Potts in an unrelated film of the same The Avengers (2012).
84. Mother Blythe Danner mentioned in her Emmy Award acceptance speech in 2015, that Kiefer Sutherland babysat her daughter as a child.
85. Is one of 3 actresses who have won both the Best Actress Oscar (hers being for Shakespeare in Love (1998)) and the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy (hers being for Glee (2009)). The other actresses are Emma Thompson and Kathy Bates.
86. Practices Transcendental Meditation.
87. Involved in a “Sliding Doors” moment for a woman who missed a train and arrived late for work at the World Trade Center on 9/11. On her way to the train, Lara Lundstrom Clarke jaywalked in front of Paltrow’s car, then stopped in the street when she recognized the star. The two stared each other down long enough for Clarke to arrive at the station just in time to see the train pulling out, her life changed by a chance delay and a narrowly-missed train, like Paltrow’s character in “Sliding Doors.” By the time Clarke reached the World Trade Center, the first tower had already fallen.
88. (September 29, 2018) Married her boyfriend of 4 years Brad Falchuk in a private wedding ceremony in the Hamptons following a 10-month-long engagement. The guests included Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Cameron Diaz, Benji Madden and Robert Downey Jr..
89. Turned down the role of Kathy in Cool as Ice (1991) (as did Lisa Marie Presley) because her parents thought the script was garbage.
90. Has two stepchildren, Brody and Isabella.
91. She was to be the original narrator for Thomas & Friends: The Great Discovery – The Movie (2008) but instead the role went to Pierce Brosnan.
92. Auditioned for the role of Dr. Ellie Sattler in ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993). Having been 20 yrs old at the time of casting, she was deemed too young for the role and ultimately Laura Dern was cast instead.
93. Born at 5:25 PM (PDT).
94. Twice played a superhero’s love interest with the initials “PP” : Polly Perkins in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), and Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
95. Is a strong believer and purveyor of pseudo-science.
96. Believes water has feelings and that what you say, positively or negatively, can have a profound effect on it.
97. Is cousins with Rebekah Neumann, the co-founder of WeWork. Rebekah was writing copy for Gwyneth’s website Goop when she met her husband. A half-cousin is actress Kate Moennig, whose father was Blythe Danner’s maternal half-brother.
98. When her father refused to support her for her acting, she worked as a waitress to meet ends.
99. Was considered for the role of Lady Margot Fenring in ‘Dune: Part Two”, which later went to Léa Seydoux.
100. She has appeared in one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant: Iron Man (2008).