Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow stepped out at the LA premiere of her new movie, Shallow Hal,looking a million miles from the character she plays in it. Dressed in a black knee-length cheongsam dress, teamed with nude trousers, and carrying a gold bag, the Shakespeare In Love actress turned on her usual glamour – something that will not necessarily be quite so visible in her latest flick.
Directed by the Farrelly Brothers, Shallow Hal is the story of a thirty-something man, played by High Fidelity star Jack Black, who only picks his girlfriends on the strength of what they look like. After Hal is hypnotised by a self-help guru to see only a person’s inner beauty, he falls in love with Rosemary, believing her to be a perfect ten when, in real life she weighs 300lbs.
To play the “rhino”, as Hal’s best friend, played by Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander, dubs her, there were no Renee Zellweger-style cake diets. Instead, Gwyneth donned a “fat suit” to play the obese woman. “The first time I had a full make-up test,” recalled Gwyneth in a recent interview, “I was at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York City. I put on the suit and I went down to the lobby.
“I walked around, and it was very interesting, because I was nervous about being found out. But no one would even make eye contact with me. Nobody would look in my direction. I think they were trying to be polite not to look, but actually it’s incredibly isolating and it really upset me.”
Thanks to a rigorous routine of Ashtanga yoga which she enjoys with her friend Madonna, Gwyneth is reed-slim. But she does not flaunt her enviable body, preferring to cover up. She is far from happy with a recent US magazine shoot with famed snapper Patrick Demarchelier, once the late Princess of Wales’s favourite photographer, as the final shots showed more of the actress than she’d expected.
After stripping off every last item of clothing all for Demarchelier, who assured her that her behind – her least favourite body part – would not be be visible, Gwyneth was shocked to see her derriere revealed in the magazine. “The photographer lied to me and said he wasn’t going to put my whole bottom in the picture, and he did,” she laments.
“It’s my fault, I guess,” she continues, insisting she believed the photo would be discreetly cropped. “You learn things the hard way. I’m really upset, but what can I do?”
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
