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Gwyneth Paltrow Says She Regrets starring in ‘Shallow Hal’

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Updated on July 5, 2023

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Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed the film in which she most regrets appearing.

The actor and Founder of Goop recently said that her part in Shallow Hal, a 2001 romantic comedy about a man who is hypnotized to perceive people’s inner beauty in their external features, was her least favorite, calling it a “disaster.” Paltrow donned a body suit to play Rosemary, an overweight lady who appeared tiny to Hal, played by Jack Black.

As one might anticipate, a slew of sloppily penned escapades ensue: She weighs down the entire front end of the boat when they go canoeing. Her underwear is too large and she conducts a striptease for him. She dives into the pool and makes a huge splash.

Paltrow and her best friend and aide Kevin Keating take a quiz to see how well he knows her after admitting her disdain for the film during a conversation with Netflix.

“I would say Shallow Hallow,” he said when asked what her least favorite performance was. “I’m not sure who told you to do that one, but it wasn’t me.

Paltrow has already stated her dissatisfaction with the job. “The first day I tried [the fat suit] on, I was in the Tribeca Grand and walked through the lobby,” she recalled in a 2001 interview with W magazine. “It was so sad; so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese. I was wearing this black shirt with big snowmen on it.”

She continued, “For some reason the… clothes they make for women that are overweight are horrible. I felt humiliated because people were really dismissive.”

Fat characters appear seldom in television and movies, and when they do, they are rarely shown as persons deserving of dignity and respect. Despite public outcry over shows like Insatiable, in which a formerly overweight teenager seeks vengeance on the bullies who fat-shamed her while also being transformed into a beauty pageant queen, and despite huge milestones being achieved with social media body-positivity trends, mainstream entertainment has yet to fare much better. There are many toxic comments concerning people’s weight: Wendy Cheng, an Instagrammer, reportedly felt comfortable criticizing model La’Shaunae Steward for her size, stating on her platform, “The morbidly obese should never have been seen as attractive.”

As far as we know, no one has asked Jack Black how he feels about this, but he also directed Pauly Shore’s biopic Bio-Dome and a film called Johnny Skidmarks, so it’s safe to assume he doesn’t have many regrets.

Paltrow also disclosed who the most famous person on her phone was throughout the game, as well as her favorite performance, a 2011 Grammy’s performance with CeeLo Green. Keating guessed, “Beyonce, maybe?” and Paltrow agreed: “She’s pretty famous.”

The Goop Lab debuted in January on the streaming service. “Leading with curiosity, Gwyneth Paltrow and her goop team look at psychedelics, energy work, and other challenging wellness topics,” reads the Netflix synopsis for the series, which delves at alternative therapies.