Field Notes
Editors weigh in on hot topics
Having Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of this week’s Oscar issue follows a tradition we instituted at Variety a few years back of featuring a distinguished onetime Academy Award winner rather than a current contender.
Helen Mirren graced our cover in 2015, sharing her memories of winning best actress eight years earlier in Stephen Frears’ biopic “The Queen.” The following year we featured the late Hattie Mcdaniel, who broke barriers in 1940 as the first AfricanAmerican to win an Oscar with her supporting honor for “Gone With the Wind.” In 2018, two-time Oscar winner Barbra Streisand, who took home the gold for best actress for her 1968 musical “Funny Girl” and original song for the 1976 remake of “A Star Is Born,” invited us for a cover shoot and interview at her Malibu estate.
This year, we decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Shakespeare in Love” by inviting Paltrow, the film’s leading lady and best actress winner, to talk about the impact her experiences had on her, both personally and professionally. Paltrow was refreshingly candid in her interview with Ramin Setoodeh about how she originally turned down the role of the cross-dressing, empowered heroine Viola; how she stood up to the ever-bullying Harvey Weinstein; and why she’s lost interest in reading movie scripts. Speaking of scripts, the actress believes the power of the “Shakespeare” screenplay, by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman, contributed mightily to the film grossing nearly $300 million worldwide and winning seven Oscars.
To this day, there’s much debate over whether the 1999 best picture win for “Shakespeare,” which beat out Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” was an actual upset, as it was widely characterized. However, I recall sitting at my computer at the Los Angeles Times, writing the Oscar story and being absolutely stunned (and ecstatic) that this quirky romantic-comedy romp from Miramax had beaten back a big studio film from Hollywood’s most successful director.
As we head into this year’s Oscars ceremony, I can only hope that there are once again some big, pleasant surprises in the winners’ circle.
Paltrow was refreshingly candid about how she originally turned down the role of Viola; how she stood up to the bullying Harvey Weinstein; and why she’s lost interest in reading movie scripts.”