40 Interesting Facts About Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born on September 27, 1972 in Los Angeles, California.

She is the daughter of Tony Award-winning actress Blythe Danner and television producer Bruce Paltrow

Her mother, Blythe Danner, was pregnant with her during production of 1776 (1972).

Paltrow made her stage debut at just 5 years old in a theater in Massachusetts's Berkshire Mountains, where her mother performed in summer stock.

She attended St. Augustine By The Sea in Los Angeles and the Spence School in New York City after she moved their with her parents when she was 11 years old.

She is  of Anglo - Saxon descent from her mother's side, while is Polish - Jewish from her father's side.

She is the first cousin of actress Katherine Moennig and Hillary Danner; and the niece of Harry Danner.

Her godfather Steven Spielberg is also the godfather of Drew Barrymore.

She started out acting as a child but soon began  earning small film roles in Shout (1991) and Hook (1991).

Steven Spielberg cast her as Wendy in the 1991 film Hook.

She traveled to Spain at age 15 to learn Spanish, and studied Anthropology at UCSB before dropping out to pursue acting.

Played the daughter of a character played by her own mother, Blythe, in NBC miniseries entitled "Cruel Doubt" (1992). Her performance was well received so she decided to pursue acting full time.

She then dropped out of her art history studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

In 1995, she appeared in the controversial film Se7en alongside Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt.

Shortly after appearing in the movie, a romance between her and Brad Pitt blossomed. "I definitely fell in love with him. He was so gorgeous and sweet and, I mean, he was Brad Pitt, you know?" she told Stern. The couple became engaged before calling it off because she felt she wasn't ready to take the next step. "I was such a kid," she told Stern. "I mean I was 22 when we met and it's taken me until 40 to get my head out of my ass. You can't make a decision when you're 22 years old."

They broke up three years later. The actress says the breakup wasn't easy on her father, either: "My father was so devastated when we broke up. My father loved him like a son." Still, the pair remain amicable exes, as Paltrow insists that she and Pitt are "friendly" when they see each other.

Paltrow soon won starring roles in a string of films including Emma (1996), Great Expectations (1998) and A Perfect Murder (1998).

In 1998, she won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Shakespeare in Love.

She denies that she stole the role of "Shakespeare in Love" from Winona Ryder. "That's an urban myth," she asserted, saying she hasn't seen Ryder in years. "I swear to God I did not, I'm raising my right hand on the Bible. I swear to God," she said in an interview with Howard Stern.

Her friendship with Winona Ryder ended in the late 1990s.

She started dating Ben Affleck in 1997 and had an on-off relationship for three years. He also had a small role in "Shakespeare in Love."

When she split with Affleck, her parents weren't as upset as they were when she and Pitt went their separate ways. "I think they appreciated how [Affleck] is super intelligent, and he's really, really talented and he's funny. But he wasn't in a good place in his life to have a girlfriend so I think they were okay with -- they loved him -- but they were okay with us not being [together]," she said.

She lives in the same apartment building, in TriBeCa, as Meryl Streep.

She turned down a role in "Boogie Nights" because of her conservative grandfather. "I can't be totally naked and giving a BJ onscreen. I'll kill my grandfather," she said of the role, which eventually went to Heather Graham. She also turned down the part of Rose in "Titanic," which was ultimately played by Kate Winslet, but she says she doesn't regret her decision: "I look back on some of the choices that I've made and I'm like, why the hell did I say no to this and yes to that? And you look at the big picture and you think there's a universal lesson here and you know, you can't hold on. What good is it?"

She speaks fairly good Spanish after spending her early teens in Talavera de la Reina, Spain.

In 2002, she shot commercials and print ads for Spain's department store chain, El Corte Ingles' spring line.

She tried her hand at directing in 2005 by making her directorial debut in 2005 for the short Dealbreakers.

In 2003, Paltrow married Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, with whom she has two children.

She delivered her daughter Apple Blythe Alison Martin naturally after a 70-hour long labor in 2004, a year after getting married.

However, she chose to deliver her son Moses Bruce Anthony Martin via Caesarean section in 2006 out of fear of having another long labor.

She served as Maid of Honor at Madonna's wedding to Guy Ritchie in Scotland.

She performed a duet with rapper Jay-Z during her 34th birthday on September 27, 2006 at Royal Albert Hall, singing the chorus for Jay-Z's "Song Cry."

She bought Kate Winslet's North London home in Belsize Park with husband Chris Martin.

In 2008, Paltrow joined the ranks of A-listers that played in films based off of comics, as she joined the cast of Iron Man as Pepper Potts, opposite Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark. The film got rave reviews and garnered the highest box office numbers of any film that Paltrow had previously played in, raking in over $300 million.

That same year, Paltrow launched her lifestyle website GOOP, which sends out a weekly newsletter on anything from parenting to fashion tips.

Paltrow wears a size 9 shoe.

Paltrow was supposed to star in She's Out of My League (2010) but due to production delays, she backed out and Alice Eve replaced her.

In March 2014, via her website GOOP, Paltrow announced that she and Martin had separated: "It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate," she stated. "We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much, we will remain separate."

Paltrow has been criticized for her pretentious quotes and outlook on life. One such thing the actress said: "I'd rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin," the actress told a British talk show.

Her net worth is $60 million.