Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar Winner, Claims She Was Only Pretending to Be an Actor

Gwyneth Paltrow never fails to amuse while on the subject of Goop, the most recent example of which was published on Wednesday in the New York Times. Rather than focus on the 46-year-old’s long career as an actress, the interview instead focuses on Paltrow the CEO and businesswoman, who heads a $250 million company.

Paltrow doesn’t take that lightly. Indeed, that role apparently is at the center of her identity, given her reaction when asked if she thought of herself as more of an actor who pivoted to lifestyle entrepreneur, or a lifestyle entrepreneur who fell into a career as an actor. It’s here we should note that Paltrow, of course, isn’t just any actor; by the time she was in her mid-20s, she’d already beaten out none other than Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep in winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1999 for her role in Shakespeare in Love. (She took home the same title from the SAG Awards and Golden Globes.)

For most actors, not to mention humans in general, that would be the crowning achievement of their career. (Seven-time nominee Glenn Close, for one, has been patiently waiting to be awarded Best Actress for decades.) Paltrow, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to understand what the fuss is about; according to the lifestyle entrepreneur, she was always simply “masquerading as an actor.”

If so, she might deserve another award for her performance in appearing fully committed to the profession. It may not have been Paltrow’s choice to grow up in show business (her mother, Blythe Danner, is an actress; her father, Bruce Paltrow, is a director and producer; and her godfather is none other than Steven Spielberg.) But it definitely seems to have been Paltrow’s choice to remain in the field. She made her acting debut at 17, then dropped out of college to pursue a career in Hollywood. And, as she told the Times, that was all in defiance of her mother, who first inspired her to go into acting—and who apparently pleaded with Paltrow not to do so, advocating that she “leverage [her] intellectual self more than [her] artistic self” instead.

Plus, as her IMDb page attests, she’s still carrying on with that charade today; she appeared in the Avengers movie last year and is currently filming its follow-up, and she also appears in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming series The Politician. As to why she’s still faking it, who knows? At this point, though, it wouldn’t be too surprising if devoting your life and career to doing so showed up as the next wellness trend on Goop.

Related: Gwyneth Paltrow Is Now Taking Credit for Popularizing Yoga