Gwyneth Paltrow Has Repurposed Her Oscar Statuette in a Very Interesting Way

Well, that’s one use for it—Gwyneth Paltrow, who won a Best Actress Oscar in 1998 for her performance in Shakespeare in Love, told Vogue in the outlet’s “73 Questions” series that she uses her Oscar statuette as a doorstop. “It works perfectly!” she said.

In the video—filmed over the summer at her home in the Hamptons—the camera catches the Oscar on the ground, propping a door open. “What a beautiful Academy Award,” interviewer Joe Sabia said, before Paltrow confirmed that, indeed, it was “my doorstop,” she said, smiling.

The statuette came up again later in the conversation, after Paltrow was asked about where the red velvet Gucci suit she wore to the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards is today. “It’s in my closet in California,” Paltrow said (she rewore the iconic look to a Gucci show in 2021). “So, you’re not using it to hold any doors around here?” Sabia joked, to which Paltrow laughed and responded, “Not currently.”

While Paltrow said, of her favorite movie role, that she couldn’t choose—“Oh gosh, I was so lucky. I’ve had so many amazing roles,” she said—she did choose her favorite line of dialogue she delivered from a film: “Probably from The Royal Tenenbaums when Margot says, ‘You probably don’t even know my middle name,’” she said.

As to which of her many movies she would actually sit through and watch in its entirety, Paltrow said “Maybe Emma,” referring to her 1996 turn as the Jane Austen heroine.

Per People, Paltrow—who was barely 26 when she won the Academy Award—said that she experienced an “identity crisis” after the milestone moment. “I just wanted to be successful and to be well-regarded,” she said on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “I was on this really fast track, and it all happened so quickly. For somebody like me, who I think was working through a lot of the harder parts of my growing up through achieving success. Once I won the Oscar, it put me into a little bit of an identity crisis, because if you win the biggest prize, like, what are you supposed to do? And where are you supposed to go? It was hard, like, the amount of attention you receive on a night like that and the weeks following is so disorienting, and, frankly, really unhealthy.” Yet, she said, “Not that I would give it back or anything. It was an amazing experience, but it kind of called a lot of things into question for me.”

Since then, Paltrow has moved on to entrepreneurship, founding Goop 15 years ago. Tellingly, Paltrow told Vogue, when asked about what she misses most about being a leading lady: “Nothing,” she said matter of factly.