“He has so much power as an actor”: the legendary star Gwyneth Paltrow was honoured to work with

Posted On October 22, 2024October 22, 2024

While Gwyneth Paltrow has taken a step back from acting since 2008, only appearing in ten live-action narrative features since then, she was once a Lawrence Olivier Award-winning stage actor and Oscar-winning screen actor. So, while most actors would feel daunted at the prospect of starring alongside the powerhouse that is Anthony Hopkins, Paltrow approached the challenge with much more honour than trepidation.

Working together on the 2005 adaptation of the award-winning play Proof, Paltrow was honoured to work with Hopkins. By this time, he had had a lengthy and critically acclaimed career as a stage actor, an Academy Award, multiple Emmys and BAFTAs, and his own Lawrence Olivier Award. So, it would be understandable if the actor playing his daughter in Proof would worried about the expectations Hopkins would have of her.

However, Paltrow had already won an Academy Award and a Lawrence Olivier Award of her own by the time she was cast in the film. Not to mention that the latter was awarded for her performance as the main character in the stage production of Proof itself. Asked by the BBC if she had any trepidation about Hopkins’ expectations of her, she said, “Probably in any other circumstances, I would have felt more trepidation about it, but because I had done the play and I was so prepared, I felt quite – not so much confident – but I knew what I was doing, I knew what my approach was, I knew the words, I knew the character very well. I was just really excited about it.”

Paltrow mostly seemed excited to be able to bring her award-winning acting performance to the role once again. After all, she played the part of a daughter of a mentally ill, genius mathematician who has to navigate her own burgeoning instability while dealing with her father’s death; a complex role, to say the least. Proof proved to be the last movie in a trio of literary films, including Possession and Sylvia, which she saw as true passion projects and the antithesis of her money-making regrets. Shallow Hal and View From the Top.

After such appearances, it must have been refreshing to work so closely with such a talented and revered actor, not just on the screen but on the stage, too. Speaking on her admiration for Hopkins as an actor, she said, “I admire him so much, he has so much power as an actor, and he’s a very lovely guy. We had a really great chemistry together.”

She felt that acting alongside such a legendary actor could only help to raise her already good standing as an actor, noting, “I definitely think it raises the game any time you work with someone who is better than you or has been doing it longer than you. It was great. I felt very lucky to work with him.” And it certainly must have worked. While the film didn’t end up quite as critically acclaimed as the play, Paltrow was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance as Catherine Llewellyn.

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