'I spent a night with Gwyneth Paltrow, and she's not the "star" I thought she was.'

In person, Gwyneth Paltrow comes across as somewhat of an ethereal apparition, with glowing skin, posture that would put a professional ballerina to shame, and a lilting voice she uses with such slowness it becomes clear she's only ever lived in a world where people lean in to hear what she has to say. 

It's all very otherworldly, until she gracefully stands up to leave the stage at the end of the night and staggers slightly in her glamorous shoes as she makes her way to the exit. Only then revealing herself to be just another woman nearly sentenced to an untimely death by wearing a slightly too-stacked wedge heel.

Listen to The Spill hosts talk about their night with Gwyneth Paltrow. Post continues below.

The actress-turned-entrepreneur was in town for the 'Besties with Gwyneth Paltrow' event at the Aware Super Theatre in Sydney. This was the first event from Besties, a new organisation co-founded by Jackie O Henderson and Gemma O’Neill, which encourages friends to come together and hear interesting speakers – of which Gwyneth certainly fits the bill.

During the night, Jackie O cycled through the many lives of Gwyneth Paltrow, from her days as a young actress whose name was plastered across nearly every movie poster, to her marriages, divorce, motherhood, founding her sometimes-controversial lifestyle brand Goop, the take-down of Harvey Weinstein and whether or not she always has snacks on hand should any of her famous friends pop over unexpectedly.

(The answer to that last one is yes, but unfortunately, that's as much about the contents of her pantry as she was willing to reveal at this particular event.)

There were many different versions of Gwyneth on offer that night, yet the more the 51-year-old spoke – and judging by the questions she chose to lean into – you barely had to read between the lines to decipher which version of Gwyneth she continually pushed to the front. Like a particularly overzealous mother at a now frowned-upon beauty pageant.

The everywoman, the easy-going boss, a homebody, and even a slightly goofy mum. This is the Gwyneth she wanted us to see the most that night.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Jackie O at the Besties event. Image: Getty.

While recounting her day in Sydney before she'd arrived at the event, Gwyneth spoke with the reverence of a tourist who had saved up her pennies to visit the harbour city. Marvelling at the beauty of the Opera House and the Royal Botanic Garden, before mentioning that she popped into the nearby Mecca where, conveniently, a selection of her Goop products are now being stocked.

How do the staff react, Jackie wondered, when someone with the fame level of Gwyneth wanders into their store and presumably is not there to set up a Beauty Loop membership?

"Oh, the lady who asked me if I needed any help had no idea who I was," Gwenyth replied with a laugh as a ripple of disbelief could be heard from the packed audience around me. A group of people unable to fathom that anyone could come face to face with the Oscar winner and Marvel star, who is also known to drop the occasional juicy Instagram Ask Me Anything, and not do a double take.

(In Gwenyth's defense, she may very well have been telling the truth, as singling out a thin, blonde, white woman in understated clothes that cost more than a car making her way through Sydney's CBD would be as hard as finding a lone needle in an Eastern Suburbs injectables clinic. I'm sure she blended in.)

This same ripple of disbelief rolled over the crowd again when Gwyneth, only a few months out from her infamous bone broth scandal, lightly dropped into the conversation that she had devoured a cheeseburger for lunch that very day.

(This story I was slightly less inclined to believe, yet the next day, a carousel of images documenting her brief Australian trip appeared on Gwyneth's Instagram page, and there, sandwiched between an Opera House selfie and pictures with friends, was an image of the apparent burger in question. Whether it was a memory pulled directly from her camera roll or a frantic Google image search to back up her story is still unclear. It feels like a topic the New York Times investigative team might want to turn their skills to next.)

But burgers and beauty products aside, even this slightly more low-key version of Gwyneth Paltrow can't discuss her life and career without having to pull us up a front-row seat to some of Hollywood's most memorable moments in time.

The daughter of actress Blythe Danner and producer-director Bruce Paltrow, she played her first notable lead role in the 1996 film Emma, based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. A VHS many a woman obsessed with the historical romantic comedy would have rewound over and over again until the tape gave out.

As she discussed her impressive filmography – which includes the still referenced Sliding Doors (the stylist who crafted her famous pixie cut for the film was also responsible for Jennifer Aniston's famous 'Rachel' cut in Friends, Gwyneth tells us) and Wes Anderson's beloved 2001 dramedy The Royal Tenenbaums (one of her few projects she watched again recently and still loves) – it was like watching a quick cut of iconic movies that had dominated my teen years.

And then, in the midst of discussing her most memorable film roles, an image from the 1995 thriller Se7en flashed above her head on a large screen, showing a then 23-year-old Gwyneth opposite (it has to be said) an absolutely smoldering Brad Pitt.

Earlier in the night, my fellow audience members may have been plagued with doubt as to whether or not Ms Paltow had consumed a cheeseburger, but at this moment everyone leaned forward a little bit more in their chairs, as we all instantly agreed that the young Hollywood royalty side of the actress' persona was now in the driving seat.

A woman who happily yelled out that Jackie O was a 'sick f**k' because she likes to rewatch Se7en (a movie where Gwyneth's head is infamously sliced off and placed in a box) and who beams with pride as she confirms for our group that yes, having the opportunity to bang a young Brad Pitt in the '90s was just as special as we imagine it to be.

Paltrow and Pitt in 1996. Image: PA Images/Getty.

For a woman who has had every aspect of her life examined, reported on, praised and dissected, it's surprising that Gwyneth appeared most in control of the room and open to discussion when her relationships were placed under the spotlight.

From her engagement to peak-era Brad Pitt, to her current marriage to Brad Fulchuck and her separation from Coldplay's Chris Martin – the father of her two children, who she now likens to a brother and squealed to the room 'Ooohh is that weird?' when the reaction to this confession is a mixture of confused laughter and the feeling of raised eyebrows – it's clear this is a woman who seems vastly more interested in discussing relationship theories than Oscar parties.

After confirming her divorce from Chris Martin in 2015, Gwyneth noted that linking their announcement to a story that explained "conscious uncoupling" ended up garnering more headlines than the end of the famous marriage itself. 

Noting that all these years later, people still stop her on the street and thank her for introducing them to this gentler method of separation, and so she's unfussed that somewhere along the way, history and tabloid headlines became muddled and people now think she invented the infamous term.

Out of all the versions of Gwyneth Paltrow she could have shown us that night, the hat she seemed most hesitant to slip atop her blonde head was 'boss'.  

Her wellness and lifestyle brand Goop has become a wildly successful business since it began life as a newsletter back in 2008. When asked what she's like as a boss, Gwyneth deflected, only throwing the audience the tiniest morsel of information of what it's like to report into Gwyneth Paltrow. Laughing that she can't make her employees come into the office, so apparently, she's not very scary.

It's a small deflection and one that easily washes away as she moved onto a quick-fire round of questions about her famous friends, naming Drew Barrymore as the pal most likely to dance upon a table on a night out – but I know why she did it.

Earlier in the night she said she knows her name in a headline is a guaranteed click, and so stories are often built around it, with audiences drawn to the excitement of glamorous star who sometimes drops a comment that any PR firm would advise against. 

'Gwyneth Paltrow is a bad boss' is clearly not the headline she wanted following her as she left Australia.

After her conversation with Jackie O came to an end, and she glided off the stage in the aforementioned stylish but difficult-to-navigate wedges, and the thunderous applause from the audience told me that, much likeSe7en-era Brad Pitt, everyone had fallen in love with Gwyneth Paltrow.

In order to understand what had driven this packed theatre of people to part with their cost-of-living-crisis dollars in exchange for a Gwyneth Paltrow ticket, I made my way around the foyer and awkwardly sidled up to groups of friends, asking them why they were there.

Some answered that they had grown up with Gwyneth Paltrow movies, and wanted to breathe the same air as their '90s icon. Others answered that they loved her glamourous gowns and later film work, outing themselves as fans who were enthralled by Gwyneth The Movie Star.

Others saw her as a relationship and lifestyle guru, while a large section of the crowd couldn't name many of her movies, but were devotees of Goop and the brand she had built.

And there at the end of the night lay the true key to Gwyneth Paltrow's enduring fame and the reason why she seemed hesitant to pick just one public face.

In many ways, Gwyneth Paltrow is like Barbie.

Just as there is a Doctor Barbie, a President Barbie, a Ballerina Barbie and a Malibu Barbie, there is a Movie Star Gwyneth, Entrepreneur Gwyneth and Just Likes To Stay Home And Eat Dinner Early Gwyneth.

A Gwyneth for every occasion.

After that night, I might not be putting my name down on a list to buy a vagina candle, but I very much enjoyed this journey through the many faces of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Laura Brodnik is Mamamia's Head of Entertainment and host of The Spill podcast. You can follow her on Instagram here.

Feature Image: Getty.

The writer attended the event as a guest of Besties. To find out more you can visit www.besties.au .

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