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Gwyneth acknowledges struggle with depression

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Her role as poet Sylvia Plath – a woman who, suffering the torment of depression, finally takes her own life – apparently hit close to home for Gwyneth Paltrow. The Oscar-winning star, who has been keeping a low profile in recent months, says she's suffered the darkest days of her life in the year since she lost her father.

The 31-year-old actress, currently stepping out with Coldplay front man Chris Martin, recently confessed she's been struggling with profound depression since her dad, producer Bruce Paltrow, passed away in October, 2002. "Some days I feel OK and then I go through maybe a three of four-day period where I feel clinically, really depressed," she says. "But I just sort of keep going. I don't know what else to do."

Though she had a "tough time" during filming of Sylvia, Gwyneth admits that her real-life suffering helped give her insight into her role as tortured poet Plath. "I was so raw and so torn apart… that my life and Sylvia's overlapped quite a bit," she says, adding later: "Because I felt like a pulp of a human being, I just went for it with everything I had."

Photo: © Alphapress.com
Gwyneth says she relates on many levels to the suicidal poet she plays in Sylvia, admitting that she has sometimes felt "clinically, really depressed" in the year since her father's death

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