Paltrow nears 30, reflects on career so far

NEW YORK -- With the approach of her 30th birthday, Gwyneth Paltrow knows at least two things are different from her younger days: She's more discriminating about what movies to make, and she now can play an emotionally cautious person based on personal experience.

"In my 20s, I tried everything," says the Academy Award-winning actress, whose past decade of work has run the gamut from the silly to the sublime.

She even signed on for films "because I liked an actress who was doing it" or "because friends were making it."

"And some things turned out better than others, obviously."

Just look at last year's "Shallow Hal" and "The Royal Tenenbaums."

"At this point -- you know that I'm turning 30 in September, and I've spent my 20s working incessantly -- what I've learned from all that work is that I really respond to directors who really have a point of view, and who really have something to say, and are very specific about how they say it," Paltrow says.

"Whether it's Paul Anderson, or Wes Anderson, or Neil LaBute ... David Fincher ... That's when I feel most fulfilled, and most like an integral part of the process. I would like to as much as possible work with directors who really excite me and really make me feel fired up about getting up in the morning and being on set and doing my job."

Still hungry

LaBute, who directed her in the new "Possession," a film adaptation of the 1990 Booker Prize-winning novel, says he was thrilled and charmed to find Paltrow is "still a hungry actor."

"There would be the ability there -- and, as I would imagine, even the temptation -- to skate by sometimes. To go: 'You know what? I've done this English dialect. I know what I'm doing here. I can waltz into this thing without much preparation and hit a home run.'"

(This film marks the fourth time she's sounded veddy British. The others were 1996's "Emma," and 1998's "Shakespeare in Love" -- for which she won her best-actress Oscar -- and "Sliding Doors.")

"And yet," LaBute goes on, "I found somebody who came into rehearsal who had done her homework, was ready to listen, ready to create the character -- and not an easy character."

Paltrow's Maud Bailey, a skeptical academic, teams with an aspiring scholar (Aaron Eckhart) to uncover a love affair between two Victorian poets. Along the way, they fall in love too -- but not before lots of self-protective posturing and hand-wringing.

"She is not immediately huggable in the movie," says LaBute. And to her credit, "Gwyneth never said, 'Hey, I got to have that moment where my public knows it's safe to like me.'"

Romantically linked over the years to Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and Luke Wilson, Paltrow says she drew upon no single affair for her latest performance, but the cumulative experience of "living and loving."

"When I was 17 or 22, it's a much different story in terms of how I would approach something," says Paltrow, who soon starts work on a film about Sylvia Plath and her marriage to poet Ted Hughes.

She also approached romance differently. Back then, like many young people, she could immerse herself in passion as if she were dousing herself in kerosene and lighting a match.

"And then you learn not to do that, I think," she says, with a little laugh. "Fortunately, or unfortunately."

In "Possession," the Victorian couple comes across as much more straight-ahead about their romantic urges than their modern counterparts are. They're held back only by the conventions of 19th century society.

"We have none of those conventions, so I think we impose on ourselves a way that we have to hold back -- which is by overanalyzing everything and making everything a study in psychology," Paltrow says.

A paparazzi pet and tabloid target, Paltrow can barely make a move without it making the papers.

"Every time she purchases a belt, she's scrutinized," LaBute notes.

He thinks that's because she's "iconic," like Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly.

"Luckily for me, I made a decision about 3 1/2 years ago to stop reading celebrity jounalism and those kinds of newspapers and magazines," says Paltrow, who says she only read the Financial Times when she was in London recently doing the play "Proof."

"So I don't really know much of what goes on. Unless it's really inflammatory. And then someone will say 'Is it true ...?' And I say 'NO! Where on earth did you hear that?'"

Dealing with a stalker

The single worst part of stardom has been having to deal with a stalker. (Earlier this year, a California appellate court upheld the December 2000 conviction of an Ohio man who sent hundreds of letters, e-mails and packages to her and showed up at the home of her parents, actress Blythe Danner and producer-director Bruce Paltrow.)

"When your safety is at stake, I mean, that is definitely the nadir of this life. And it was a really traumatic experience. And it was really traumatic for my parents."

In person, Paltrow comes across not at all like the ice princess she's so good at playing. She happily explains her macrobiotic diet, saying she just tries "to eat as organic, as locally grown, as seasonal as possible, as close to the state that you find them in nature ... as if there were no agribusiness, hormones and pesticides."

She avoids dairy, meat, and anything processed or refined.

"Since I've been eating this way, I've felt incredibly good and healthy. It's not been like a weight thing," the willowy 5-foot-9 blonde says, then chuckles. "I've actually gained weight, from all the whole grains and stuff like that."

After this interview she's planning to eat at a gastronomic Valhalla of Italian cooking in New York, Babbo, and adds: "By the way, if I want a bite of someone's pie one night, I'll have a bite of the pie. The sugar in it doesn't make me feel very good."

"And I'm not one of those people, either, who eat a certain way and get up on a soapbox and say 'I do it right.' I just do my own thing ... everybody else can do what they want."