Gwyneth Paltrow Says She’s a “Total Psycho” and “Really Impatient” About Goop Product Development

Gwyneth Paltrow was never hyperaware of the passage of time—until she was about to turn 40. “I was like, Holy shit, I don’t get it! I think I grew up with 40 being such a big number, and obviously it’s all kind of changed now in terms of the way we hold women in their 40s and 50s,” she says. “Just look around at all these incredible women that we see in the public eye. I grew up with a 50-year-old being the Golden Girls, so I think when I was around 40, I realized how quickly life was going.”

“Having kids really, really accelerates that, and then losing my dad when he was only 58, I think compressed time for me in a way, and I realized that it does actually move really, really fast—and the importance of taking stock and making sure you’re connected with your inner life as you pass through. The fact that my kids are both in college now is so surreal to me. It feels like it was maybe eight years ago, max, that I had them. But it’s not. It’s like 20.”

Time, in all its forms, is top of mind when I connect with Paltrow early one Monday morning. She’s fresh off two milestones, having celebrated her 52nd birthday on September 27 and, two days later, her sixth wedding anniversary with her husband, Brad Falchuk. “It’s been a big week for us over here,” she tells me, phoning in from Italy, where she and Falchuk are staying in “a little farmhouse on top of a hill.”

It’s a brief lull for Paltrow, who just last week was in Paris “doing a bit of work and stuff for Fashion Week” before departing for Italy, where she and Falchuk hosted friends in honor of her birthday. “And then everybody left, and it’s just been my husband and I for our anniversary,” she says. “We are super psyched to have a break. It’s been a long year so far, so it’s been really nice.”

But stateside, a jam-packed calendar awaits. Paltrow is gearing up to return to the big screen for the first time since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, with a still-undisclosed role in Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie’s film about a professional table tennis player, starring Timothée Chalamet in the titular role. And then, of course, there’s Goop, the lifestyle and wellness brand that Paltrow started as a newsletter 16 years ago and grew into a multifaceted DTC business, selling everything from sleek knitwear by house brand G.Label, to Foundrae and Erede jewelry, to housewares that would look at home in Paltrow’s own Montecito abode. The latest from headquarters? Goop Beauty is days away from releasing its 3x Retinol Regenerative Serum, which is slotting in alongside such brand favorites as Goop’s 15% Glycolic Acid Overnight Glow Peel pads, Dark Spot Exfoliating Sleep Milk, and Youth-Boost Peptide Serum.

“I’m a total psycho when it comes to product development. I will not stop until we’ve created something that’s incredible,” Paltrow says of cementing her role in the beauty industry. “I’m also really impatient, so I want to see results really quickly.” And in a crowded market, she says, “the only reason to make something is if you can make something differentiated and up to my standards, which are extremely, extraordinarily high.”

Developed to minimize the appearance of deep wrinkles—the souvenirs of days gone by—and deliver youthful-looking skin, the fragrance-free formula combines three skin-renewing retinoids with a collagen-boosting polypeptide, aimed to smooth rough texture and combat laxity. It counts benthi plant peptide, beetroot extract, adzuki bean extract, licorice extract, and bisabolol among its key ingredients.

Though the retinol isn’t available for purchase until Sunday, October 6, Paltrow has already incorporated it into her regimen via samples from the lab.

“I kind of layer it with our peptide serum and then I put moisturizer on top,” she says of her “go-to” product trio in the transition from summer to fall. “I’m not in the sun as much, and I am going to do a film for the first time in a long time. I’m really trying to get my skin in good shape, looking hydrated and plump. And so I’ve been very, extra good about my routine.”

While readying her skin is just one way she prepares for a role, Paltrow, who doesn’t “really wear makeup very much in my own life,” notes that getting out of character is just as important as getting into it, describing her post-set ritual as a “psychological part” of slipping back into her real life.

“There’s something very, for me, healing about taking the day off,” she says. “It starts with makeup, and then I get in the bath and have salts—and I just like to sort of wash all of that down the drain, and other people’s energies and opinions and whatever happened that day.” As time races by, it’s worth lingering over certain moments: “I definitely have a long get-ready-for-bed ritual,” she says.