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updated 28 Sep 2013, 20:54
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Mon, Aug 19, 2013
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Woman in control
by Ong Soh Chin

In person, Gwyneth Paltrow looks exactly as you imagine her to be.

She is blonde, lithe and sun-kissed, the latter quality particularly enhanced by the glorious golden rays that bathe the city of Valencia in Spain on a typically sunny day in May.

It is here that she is meeting the world's press as the face of Boss Jour Pour Femme, the new women's fragrance by the German fashion house, Hugo Boss. Paltrow is also the face of Boss Nuit, which was launched last year. Boss has a total of eight fragrances in its portfolio, including Boss Orange Woman, which was fronted by British actress Sienna Miller.

Paltrow is also, according to People Magazine, the world's most beautiful woman, an accolade she accepts with a shrug and a smile.

"I feel very honoured. It's especially nice to be 40 and to be given that title," she says, adding that her children - Apple, nine, and Moses, seven - are too young to understand the hoopla. She celebrates her 10th wedding anniversary to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin this year.

In any case, Paltrow claims to not read things that are written about her, in an effort to block out the nasty white noise that always attaches itself to celebrities.

After all, the same day she was feted by People for her beauty in April, Star magazine named her the world's most hated celebrity. Her commitment to macrobiotic food and a healthy lifestyle that can only be supported by a hefty income has been construed as pretentious and imperious by some, out-of-touch and loopy by others.

In a clipped tone, she says: "I don't read anything about myself. What strangers say is really about them, not about me. Whether it's anger or joy they are expressing, they may be projecting it on me, but it's really a reflection of themselves."

She shifts a little on her chair. The group interview with five members of the international media is taking place in a beautiful courtyard at the Jardines La Cartuja, a 17th century monastery that now serves as a boutique hotel and event space.

Her golden hair is tied back into a ponytail and she is dressed simply in a white singlet and cream-coloured roomy silk trousers. She is shorn of all adornments, save for a few long silver chains around her neck.

Her demeanour is professional, to the point of being curt. And at no point does she let down her guard, offering simple short answers that stop short of being truly enlightening.

It is clear that she is a perfectionist and a person who very much likes to be in control. It is these attributes, plus a heap of talent, that have made her one of Hollywood's most versatile and successful actresses.

She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress - in 1999 for Shakespeare In Love - and secured a place in a blockbuster franchise, Iron Man. Along the way, she has released a single, Crusin', which hit the top of Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart in 2000, and parlayed her singing skills in a comedic star turn in 2010 on the popular TV series, Glee.

As an entrepreneur, she started an online lifestyle publication called Goop in 2008 and has written a series of cookbooks with celebrity chef Mario Batali.

Paltrow is, without doubt, a very accomplished woman. But she will have you know that, despite what people may think, it is not easy. And one does get the feeling that she can be hard on herself.

"When I feel stressed, I try to get time alone. I also write my feelings down on paper and burn them; it's cathartic," she says, matter-of-factly, when asked how she copes with it all.

"I empower myself by knowing myself and knowing who I am and treating that with importance. I no longer always do things for other people. Instead, I have an integrity in things that I do and who I do them with."

This empowerment is evident, not only in her career achievements, but also her much-vaunted physique.

Paltrow has not been shy about displaying her toned body in show-stopping red carpet outfits, such as the recent Antonio Berardi number with sheer side panels that she wore to the Hollywood premiere of Iron Man 3 which left little to the imagination.

"I have high discipline," she says, adding that she exercises five days a week, following the Tracy Anderson method of one hour of dance aerobics daily, followed by 45 minutes of muscle workout.

"I'm very serious about it and it keeps me fit and young. When I first started, it was really tough. But Tracy told me to think of it as something as necessary and ordinary as brushing my teeth."

Surprisingly, though, this hardcore discipline does not extend to her beauty routine. "I use very little product. I usually don't put on any SPF even when I'm out because I am not afraid of the sun," she says, adding that she does, however, visit facialist to the stars Sonia Dakar regularly for treatments.

"My regular beauty routine involves me brushing my teeth and splashing water on my face. I hardly wear any make-up - just Max Factor mascara and Kiehl's lip balm," she adds.

She confesses to having little free time. Her work agenda is planned six months in advance and she says candidly that she would not know what to do if she had time on her hands.

And while she still loves acting - she is waiting for a Spanish film, 33 Dias, in which she plays Dora Maar, Pablo Picasso's lover and muse from the 1930s to the 1940s, to be green-lit - she takes on only one big acting project a year, so as to be able to spend time with her kids.

While she and her family have been living in London, it has been reported that they will be moving back to Los Angeles. I ask her, if she could go back 14 years and offer advice to the younger version of herself in the pink princess Ralph Lauren gown, all flushed with success at her Oscar win for Shakespeare In Love, what would she say?

She pauses, looks down, then offers a perfect Gwyneth answer, new-agey in part, but also pragmatic: "I believe we are put on earth to make soul corrections, and a lot of this comes through pain and suffering. So, I would tell her to trust the process.

"I have experienced a lot of loss in my life. But I think every part of my life has also led me somewhere important and it's been an amazing self-discovery to get to a place where I am finally comfortable with myself.''

Boss Jour Pour Femme is available from next month at BHG Bugis and BHG Tampines, as well as Sephora stores. It costs from $79 for a 30ml Eau De Parfum.


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