Special Coverage The Photo IssueThe Must List2008 Fall TV2008 Fall Movies2008 Fall Music
Page 3 of 5

"Not wheat, right?"

"No, spelt."

What?

"Spelt," Paltrow says. "It's a much more easily digestible grain than wheat. Wheat's very hard on your immune system. But I promise you, you practice Ashtanga every day and you eat like this, nothing can stop you."

Well, somebody pass the spelt, because even underneath a pair of light blue men's pajamas (she's about to film a bedtime scene with Aaron Eckhart), Paltrow may have the hardest showbiz body since Angela Bassett. "We were doing some looping recently and she was doing all these yoga positions," says Roos. "It was very Cirque du Soleil."

"She does yoga for an hour and a half a day," Affleck says. "She speaks French, she speaks fluent Spanish, and she speaks passable conversational Italian. She knows about art history, architecture, culture, style, and wine, even though she doesn't drink wine anymore. And she knows all about football, too. It really makes you feel inadequate."

For Bounce, Paltrow, 28, had to shed her tony pedigree: Her Abby Janello is a Valley housewife with frizzy hair and not a stitch of Prada in her closet. "She was very interested in dropping her whole princess persona," says Roos. "She was eager not to be perceived as this English-accent-speaking fancy pants. Sometimes she would say 'EYE-ther' and I would say, 'Gwyneth, say EE-ther!'"

Filming the role presented more serious challenges, particularly when Abby learns of her husband's death. The scene reminded Paltrow of the moment when, as a teenager, she found out that former boyfriend Harrison Kravis had been killed in a car accident. What added to the pain, she says, was that the scene was shot on "my birthday. I'll never forget that.... Also, my grandfather had just died. So I was all raw." She cringes. "And then they brought me a birthday cake at lunch."

Though Paltrow will soon return to the States, where she plans to make three films back-to-back (Bruno Barreto's A View From the Top, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, and the Farrelly brothers' Shallow Hal), she seems to have found a second home in London. In fact, Possession is being filmed on the same soundstage that Shakespeare in Love and Sliding Doors were. "It's taken me a long time to feel really comfortable here, but now I do," she says. "Though, as my best friend Mary says, I never get a real sense of what things are really like, being me."

And being Gwyneth apparently includes being dogged by the occasional paparazzo. "I don't understand people's fascination," she says of her relationship with Affleck. "If we're in the same city, we go out. We're close. Sometimes when I'm in L.A., I stay in his house. But it's not what people think it is. We are not together. I swear on my life. We're not. I would not sit here and lie to you. I would not."

She does acknowledge that their history deepened their on-screen dynamic. "It's really art imitating life," she muses. "Only without the happy ending in our case. But we have another kind of happy ending, which is that we have a friendship. I love his family, even more than I love him. So that's a good thing."


Page 3 of 5