When we sat down with Gwyneth Paltrow about her role as Pepper Potts in Iron Man 3, she had so much more she wanted to share with us.  One thing in particular is that her new cookbook, It’s All Good is now available and she was so kind to bring a copy for each and every one of us!  As a bonus, during her interview, she personally signed each copy to us, just another thing that gave us such a warm feeling about her as person.

Adding best-selling author to her resume, Gwyneth shared why and how she got started creating cookbooks!

GP : I started writing down my recipes because I was always a cook and a foodie.  My friends would call me, there’s Julia, my best friend since seventh grade {in the room}. She called me once and she said, I have a guy coming over, I have no idea what to make- I have to make dinner. I had a lot of friends asking me how do you do that, or what temperature do I roast this at? So I started writing them all down.

Then when my dad died I just thought it would be- because he was the one taught me cook, and we learned together and our connection to food was such a part of our relationship..I thought it would be really nice because I felt him in the kitchen, and I felt it would be nice to write the recipes, and pay homage to him and our relationship at the same time, and it was cathartic.

Friends and family are reasons we do everything in life, right?  I love that tribute to her father.  Gwyneth’s goes on to explain how her son’s skin condition also played a huge role in creating this new cookbook.

My son has really bad eczema, so I did food allergy tests, and he’s really allergic to gluten and cow’s milk. And I felt so bad for him not having regular ice cream and meat balls and stuff. So I just started a mini-encyclopedia of totally yummy comfort food that’s on his diet.

And it’s been incredible because so many people are trying to avoid gluten either for weight or they’re allergic to it, that’s sort of how it all happened.

There are references to duck egg throughout the cookbook, here’s why:

GP : He {her son} can’t have chicken egg. I’m actually allergic to chicken egg as well, there’s some duck egg in it, but also regular eggs. But that’s why the whole baking, the whole sweet section has no egg, no milk, no butter, no gluten, to give alternatives for moms who are trying to follow that kind of regimen.

Like many busy actor/parents, life happens and you find yourself overwhelmed and Gwyneth had a scare that led her to the doctor.  She shared this very sensitive topic with us.

GP : What happened was, two years ago, I had this real insane period where I had this movie Country Strong coming out, I was filming Glee, and I was having to sing  live. My husband was like, most people start in a bar with their uncle, there you are you at the Grammy’s, that’s crazy[LAUGHS]. And it was really hard on me. I was so nervous, I was taking beta blockers and drinking a beer, really bad.

Because I’m a mom, I would never get to L.A. one day early so I can actually sleep or take a walk.  I have to get there the day of,  I shower and do it, and go home right away. So I was just like steadily wearing myself down and I think there was some emotional stuff too. I had this weird episode where, I talk about it in the book, but I was making lunch, and the right side of my body went numb, and it was so terrifying, I thought I was having a stroke.

Because I thought I was having a stroke, I started having an anxiety attack on top of what was this migraine that was, like, making my whole right side numb, and I really freaked out. I took a nap, and I remember hearing my kids playing in the garden, and I can’t believe I’m here like, I can’t go down and play with them what’s happening. So I went to the doctor and I was really super freaked out, and I got tested for everything.

And basically I had run myself into the ground. I had really, really high stress hormones- they were killing my adrenals. I had really low vitamin D, vitamin B; my estrogen was messed up, like, everything was just off, and they said I had a cyst on my parathyroid, I had a cyst on my ovary- like, they found a million things wrong. And my doctor here said I want you to,  just for three weeks, eat an elimination diet. Just eat super clean, just like how your ancestors would’ve eaten like chicken, fig, vegetables.

No coffee, no alcohol, no sugar, and in three weeks my blood work had changed so much, my parathyroid nodule went away over time which is amazing. I did have to get my cyst out with surgery, but other than that, I fixed everything with the food. Food really is medicine. It’s amazing. I mean, it’s only because I did it to myself, you know what I mean? And then I undid it.

Gwyneth’s advice on nutrition just rang home for so many of us, it’s something I think about on every trip to the grocery store now!

GP : A nutritionist once told me the way that we’ve changed our diet in the last fifty years is crazy. If you showed our grandmothers, our great grandmothers what we were eating, they’d be like, this isn’t even food. What are you doing? And she said the best thing to do-when you’re at the supermarket, shop the periphery. That’s where all the fresh food is, that’s where the chicken, fish, beef- everything fresh is on the periphery. Just avoid those aisles {in between}, and it really makes sense because that’s where all the processed food is.

My philosophy is always like, I try to cook really healthy at home because I can’t control what they eat at home or at friend’s houses. Nor do I want to. I want them to be autonomous and have- make their own choices and have a life.

So many of us moms have the same question, especially for Gwyneth who’s life is a lot more on the go as ours:

Q : How do you keep your kids healthy when you’re away from home?

GP : We were just in Paris; I was on the Iron Man press tour. I mean, try eating gluten free in Paris. It is a nightmare. My poor child. So you know what I try to do? I mean, he totally ate a croissant; he ate bread, and it was inevitable. But, one day I was like, let’s go find Japanese food, Asian foods are amazing for avoiding a lot of that stuff.  If we’re traveling or we’re out, I try Mexican food-the corn tortillas and guacamole, it’s awesome and doesn’t feel like health food, but I’m avoiding what he’s not supposed to have. So I just try to get a little bit more creative about it.

One of the girls in our group had the scoop on what Gwyneth does in the kitchen… she raps!  So she asked her about it and her reaction was so cute!

GP : [LAUGHS] Do you have a hidden camera in my kitchen? That is so crazy. How do you know that? Yes, we are a hip hop household, one hundred percent. My son, especially!  He said the best thing the other day because he’s loves hip hop. He’s obsessed and Jay-Z’s a really close friend of ours and that was his sort of gateway into hip hop. He’s branched out and the other day he was like, Mom, I think that Jay is a story rapper and Kid Cudi is a feelings rapper. And I was like, you’re totally right. This is so weird. Yeah, so yeah, the answer is yes.

Q : Do your kids cook with you a lot?

GP : Oh yes. My son especially is really, really into it, and he can perfectly crack an egg.  He has since he was four- no shells in the bowl. Every weekend, we’d cook something together. He loves it. He’s so proud of himself and I actually think that the kitchen is an amazing place to interact and teach kids. We do math in the kitchen. It’s such quality time of interacting but you’re also making dinner, you know what I mean? You’re not like on the floor water coloring which makes me wanna kill myself!

Between the two parts of the interview we all really learned that she is a mom just like us.  She loves her family, she’s passionate about health and food, and she is amazing at her craft.  What an inspiration and such an amazing opportunity we had to experience with her.  You should check out her cookbook, It’s All Good, I can’t wait to try out some of her fabulous recipes!

Our interview was part of a hosted press trip provided by Disney/Marvel, all opinions are my own.

All photos courtesy of Dear Crissy

If I know anything about Gwyneth Paltrow it’s that she is shockingly beautiful, statuesque, fun-loving, sweet, generous, passionate, and probably could have talked to us all night!  What was supposed to be a brief q&a session, turned into what felt like a casual conversation you’d have with your best friend!  In fact, I  just finished listening to my audio recording of our group interview and just love her more and more as a mom, an author, a woman, and an actress!

24 bloggers and I sat down to chat with Gwyneth Paltrow just before the Hollywood premiere of Iron Man 3 last week.  With her was her publicist and even her best friend since childhood.  Her beaming smile was warm and inviting and it’s no wonder that she was bestowed the honor of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful woman, she talked a little about that:

GP : Steven has been my publicist since I was nineteen years old, and he sent me the email and I was like this is a typo,  I reread it three times, and then I got this really weird feeling that my school bully had somehow was playing a trick on me. I swear, I had to talk about with my shrink. I went through this whole weird thing,  he {said} yes it’s true. And I was beyond surprised, flattered, and I still kinda can’t believe it. It’s really cool.

When you see Iron Man 3 this weekend, you’ll notice Pepper Potts in THE SUIT!  It’s one of those moments in a film that empowers women and I may have been the ones who yelled out and cheered!

GP :  I love putting on the suit. It was really weird, I’ve never done anything like that in my whole career, and my son was on set, and so I’ll never forget it.  I walk out onto the set, and I was fully dressed in the suit and his face, because he’s in the last probably year and a half  watched the first Iron Man and Avengers and everything, I’ll never forget his face. He was in shock and awe. It was so cool.  By the way, I now have a Lego in the set- there’s a Pepper, so I am a goddess. So fun.

Can you imagine the mommy points she scored with her son?  I can’t wait to grab a LEGO set for my daughter that has Pepper in the Iron Man suit!  I love how that meant so much to her as an actress and especially as a mother!

Gwyneth had never taken on such a powerful, strong role before, she talked a little about how the turn about came in Pepper’s character:

GP : I loved it so much. You know, come on guys, all these boys are flying around doing all this fun stuff and I loved how patient and kind and sweet Pepper is.  But, when I read this script, I was like oh yeah. She’s in the suit and flying around, and I loved doing the stunts. As I said, I really had never done anything like that before.It was really fun. I felt like I should’ve been doing this the whole {time}, why am I doing all these period films,  it’s so boring! {laughs}

Some great stories are the behind the scenes events that go on, on a set and Gwyneth again beamed as she told us a story about having her kids with her during filming.

GP : I’m so bad at remembering the funny stories. I mean, the things that I remember from set are my kids learning  like how to drive a golf cart! {The set is} so big and you drive a golf cart from one thing to another, you’re like okay  you can drive the golf cart.  Then all of a sudden, they just started taking off in golf carts. So, this is illegal and this is not okay.  Or their Nerf gun fights, {it was} a fun experience for the family and they love Robert. They, they had no idea that Robert was famous until probably a year ago. They just love him so much and he creates a fun environment, and it was nice. It was a really nice shoot, you know, when you work with someone over and over again that you really love and, like, that environment is so familial and the kids feel- everybody feels it, and it was- it, it really was so great.

Soon you’ll also be reading about my interview with Iron Man 3’s newest (and youngest) actor Ty Simpkins.  Ty hadn’t seen the movie before last week’s premiere.  Curious if Gwyneth had seen a screening yet she told us:

GP : I saw it. Marvel/Disney, after the press in London, rented a little screening room and I brought my son and my daughter and seventeen of their friends, it was so awesome. We watched it in 3D and I was really surprised. I mean, I thought the movie was actually a really a good movie.  I normally don’t watch this kind of movie and I thought it was so good. I thought there were so many really interesting metaphors in it. The media sort of being proponents of fear and how that affects the culture, what’s real, what’s a threat.  I loved Robert, Tony Stark, being really stripped back and raw and you know, having to kind of MacGyver his way back to strength. I just loved the relationship with Pepper and Tony.  I thought it was really cool to see her wanting to get her needs met, and I just thought it worked. Then of course, all the action stuff is so fun, but I also think that the bones of it were actually really good.

I old now to start being in action movies, [LAUGHS]. I would like to {be in more}. Everybody’s sort of been very sweet about Pepper in this movie, like all the journalists who came in. They were like, oh my God, you have to have your own movie, because in the comics, Pepper gets her own suit, and she becomes a character called Rescue. We need a Rescue movie and…I’d better hit the gym.

For a few minutes I paused and thought, this is unreal!  Ellen DeGeneres gets interviews with celebrities like this and here we are 24 blogging women from all over the US and we’re in a near half-hour casual conversation with Gwyneth Paltrow!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  In just about an hour and a half she was to be on the Red Carpet, but she wasn’t rushed, she wasn’t bothered to be hanging out with us, answering all our questions, she is so awesome!

After hearing that silver and white were her favorite colors and they’d don the super hero suit of her personal choice, we got down to the question of the day, what was it really like working with Robert Downey Jr.?

GP:  It’s so fun. I mean, he’s really the most spontaneous, mad genius, {always} improvising. {He keeps you} on your toes. It’s really interesting to see how all these different actors work and what their process is.  Jeff Bridges on the first movie, he had binders of research and everything was underlined and highlighted, and there were graphs.  And then Robert would come in and read the scene and rip it up, and be like, nope we’re not doing it.  He’s like, this is bull, let’s make it up- and poor Jeff Bridges would be dying, he had memorized everything!

As the woman, of course, you’re just like let’s keep everyone happy. [LAUGHS] There’s a happy medium to be found here, guys. You know on this movie, he was at least not throwing away the scenes every day because the screenplay was really good.  You never know what’s gonna happen which I love.  Not Jeff Bridges, {he} does not love it, but..[LAUGHS]

I never even met {Ty Simpkins, who plays Harley}. But I loved in the movie how they do that relationship and that is exactly what Robert is like.

If this interview doesn’t tease you enough to pre-order those movie tickets for this weekend, I don’t know what will!  I have EVEN MORE content with Gwyneth Paltrow coming up.  We talk to her about her new cookbook and I’m hoping to get in the kitchen with one of her recipes this weekend!

So what do you think, she’s amazing isn’t she?

Our interview was part of our press trip hosted by Marvel/Disney.  All opinions are always my own.