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Gwyneth Paltrow is looking back at her unexpected Oscar win in 1999.
The star took home the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in “Shakespeare in Love” at the young age of 26 – an event that changed her life.
She spoke on the latest episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast about how those changes weren’t always for the better.
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“Once I won the Oscar, it put me into a bit of an identity crisis, because if you win the biggest prize, like what are you supposed to do? And where are you supposed to go?” Paltrow recalled.
“It was hard the amount of attention that you receive on a night like that and the weeks following, it’s so disorienting. And frankly, really unhealthy,” she continued. “I was like, ‘This is crazy. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know which way is up.’ It was a lot. Not that I would give it back or anything, it was an amazing experience, but it kind of called a lot of things into question for me.”
The actress broke down into tears as she thanked her parents, Blythe Danner and Bruce Paltrow. Unexpectedly, the press focused on the tears afterwards.
“I remember I was working in England… and I remember the British press being so horrible to me because I cried. And they didn’t necessarily know that my father was dying of cancer.”
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At that point, her father’s cancer diagnosis was not public knowledge. He later died in 2002.
“I felt a real pivot on that night because I felt like up until that moment everybody was kind of rooting for me in a way,” Paltrow said. “And then when I won, it was like too much, and I could feel a real turn.”
“He was really debilitated. It was just this totally overwhelming moment,” she shared. “And, you know, I was 26. I cried and people were so mean about it and I just thought, ‘Wow there’s this big energy shift that’s happening. I think I’m going to have to learn to be less openhearted and much more protective of myself and filter people out better.’”