Gwyneth Paltrow has said she does not feel comfortable with fame as she reflected on her decision to step back from Hollywood.
The 48-year-old actress won an Oscar aged 26 and has been in the public eye for more than 20 years.
Paltrow moved away from acting in 2017, saying she wanted to focus on her lifestyle brand Goop. She has since appeared sporadically on screen.
Speaking to Naomi Campbell for the supermodel’s No Filter web series, Paltrow, a mother of two, said she began reassessing her career as she got older.
She said: “I think a lot of that also comes from the fact that I – and this is something that I think I realised later in life – actually haven’t been that comfortable being a public person or being in front of the camera even though I’ve done it for so long.
“There’s a part of me that really feels shy and doesn’t feel like I’m naturally an extrovert.
“I started doing it so young … I went for a long time before I asked myself, ‘like, do I like this job? Am I comfortable doing this? Do I want to be an actor?’”
Paltrow married TV producer Brad Falchuk in 2018. She appeared in Netflix drama The Politician the following year, a show Falchuk co-created and joked only her husband could entice her back to acting.
She said: “Someone said ‘what is it going to take to get you acting again?’ And I said I have to be f****** the writer!
“But that’s sort of it, if my husband writes something and he wants me to do it, then I’ll do it. I could never say never. I would like to go back on stage one day, I really loved doing theatre.”