Gwyneth Paltrow is the cover girl for the May issue of Harper’s Bazaar, so be forewarned, PEASANTS. Harper’s introduces the interview (here for the full piece) with this: “She might portray the immaculate girl in a gilded world, but fashion icon Gwyneth Paltrow is far from perfect. And she likes it that way.” Hahaha, I love when Dame Gwyneth attempts to be approachable to us fat, depressed minions so obviously less than worthy of her pearls of wisdom. Oh, it’s on, bitches. You know this sh-t is going to be good.

First, a word about the photo shoot: is anyone getting a Candace Bergen vibe from this? The hair is very Candy Bergen, although I think Bazaar was aiming for (as always with Gwyneth) “Grace Kelly ice princess” but they ended up with “glazed-eyed, aging WASP, stuck in her staid apartment because of her crippling agoraphobia”. The white is horrible too, it looks like a bridal photo shoot – ugh, I really don’t like the way Gwyneth is styled at all. Even though I abhor her personality, I acknowledge that she’s a pretty woman, and they made her look terrible. Okay, onto the interview! Here are the best highlights:

Gwyneth Paltrow on her diet of “fried chicken and booze” for her role in Love Don‘t Let Me Down: “The director, Shana Feste, didn’t want me to have any definition whatsoever, so I had to stop working out,” says Gwyneth, balefully eyeing her bod. “I was so bad with the food and alcohol in Nashville. If you saw me naked compared to what I looked like when I did Iron Man 2, when I was exercising every day—I’ll get it back together, but I’ve never eaten so much fried food and white flour in my life, ever. Oh, God,” she groans as she wryly snaps a spindly breadstick in two. This from the poster girl of health and wealth, oh my.

On drinking: “I’m not having anything to drink. I’m usually such a wino, they must be wondering what’s going on.” Then, she tucks heartily into a plate of risotto al Barolo topped with Castelmagno cheese.

Name-dropping Kate Winslet: “I don’t know how people do it. I was just at a photo shoot with Kate Winslet, and I was like, ‘How the f-ck do you do this? I don’t understand.’ Kate said, ‘I know, it doesn’t work. Everyone falls apart. I haven’t worked in 20 months.'”

On being exhausted but happy: “Some days I feel like everyone in my world has plugged themselves into my kidneys. I’m so tired,” she says with a sigh. She even pulled out of a movie with Nicole Kidman, The Danish Girl. With the shoot changing locales, Gwyneth found it too taxing for her little ones. Not to mention that her husband, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, has an equally complex tour schedule. She does readily admit, however, “When you’re having dinner with your kids and your husband and someone says something funny or you’re dying laughing because your three-year-old made a fart joke, it doesn’t matter what else is going on. That’s real happiness.”

She hasn’t done any difficult acting in years: But save her latest part as a down-on-her-luck chanteuse, she hadn’t done anything really emotionally draining since having kids; to wit, she was in both Iron Man movies and Running with Scissors. “Proof was the last really tough role that I did, and I was pregnant with my daughter then.”

On her work on Iron Man: “Iron Man was heaven,” she says. “The kids could come every day. They had their mini Jeep that they drove around the parking lot in front of my trailer. I wasn’t naked or crying like on the Nashville movie, where it was like, ‘No, you can’t visit Mommy today.’ This was a much different thing. But professionally, I did feel so ‘Oh, my God, yes, this is what I do. You know, this is me.'”

On not being the It Girl anymore: “You never know if you’re going to be in or out of favor. Or if you’re going to get a good part. I’ve been through everything from being at the top of the A list and then ‘No, they don’t really see you for this part.'”

Robert Downey Jr. on the Goopster: “The press loves her and knows she’s talented, but now they just want to see how hot she looks in those Louboutins. Or whatever crazy shoes. She was practically wearing things that had goldfish swimming around in the heels,” recounts her amused costar. “She knows how to go large, and she knows how to be that thing and that person, and then the rest of the time she’s wearing a pair of yoga pants and steaming some cod or something.”

On the rumors that Goopy & Madonna are fighting: “That’s hilarious. Sometimes I’m just acting for other people.”

Even more name-dropping! “The hotel concierge is not telling me where to get a facial, Christy Turlington is. Doesn’t everyone want to know that? I would want to know if you went to Mario Batali’s house what he made you for dinner and could I have the recipe. So why not?” she asks earnestly.

More on how she sees her GOOP: “There was a brouhaha in the beginning there, which I thought was very interesting, because people don’t like you to step outside of your box,” she says. “Also, journalists are terrified of celebrities having a journalistic voice. You can spend your life worrying about it or you can just do what you’re doing. Especially if you’re doing something just to be nice, just to share and have fun.” She’s not trying to brand herself as a domestic goddess à la Martha Stewart. She has no backers, isn’t looking for any, has only one person in her employ, and actually spends “a ton” of her own money producing the site. “I don’t have advertisers or anything, and I would never want to,” she says.

On her husband and her marriage: And while Gwyneth is happy to talk about everything from detoxing to her father’s death, she keeps the inner workings of her six-year marriage private. Much has been made of the couple’s pact to avoid appearing together publicly, but she has only positive words for him—especially about when she was working so hard to nail her part as a singer and had to learn to play guitar. “He was so helpful, so sweet and encouraging. I mean, it’s embarrassing to be playing in front of your husband, especially when he’s in one of the world’s most successful bands. He is so great because he’s so supportive of me as an artist,” she continues. “He loves the fact that I’m working and was so fulfilled by this job that I did in Nashville. He’s my biggest supporter. He’s always like, ‘We’ll make it work.’ But when I pulled out [of The Danish Girl], he said, ‘I think you’ll be happy with your decision.’ I really lucked out with him. He’s deeply lovely and special.”

On the paparazzi: “The thing about the paparazzi, I realized, is it’s probably made me look like a really grumpy person,” she explains. “Because when you get a magazine and you see someone with a scowl on her face, looking down, you’re like, ‘God, she looks like a bitch’ or ‘She looks like an unhappy old lady.’ But when you’re the person they’re taking the picture of, it’s like, ‘You just followed me and made my kid cry and you’re going to make money off it? You want me to look at you and smile? Are you out of your mind?'”

On Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: The myriad tabloid covers of Brad Pitt, her ex, and Angelina Jolie that are hard to miss. “Every time, they’re like, ‘Their marriage is in crisis!’ or whatever. And you’re just like, ‘Well, you always write that about me, and it’s never right, so I can only assume it’s not right.’ I feel bad for them. They have it worse than anybody on the planet. I mean, we get hounded too, but not like that.”

Even more name-dropping: “I really felt like I was 15. I wanted to take a picture. I didn’t! But I was like, ‘Oh, my God—Bono, the Edge. I can’t believe I’m sitting here and no one’s telling me to get out.’ Like, I’m allowed to be here.”

On balance: “Big changes always regenerate things. Because otherwise, you plateau,” she says. “Life is about the plateaus and the valleys and mountains. You don’t want to be on only the plateau, you know, you’ve got to shake it up.”

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

Epic. My favorite quality about Gwyneth is that she wouldn’t be able to live if she couldn’t name-drop all of the people she knows or who she parties with or who she feels bad for – I’m sure Brad and Angelina can take comfort in Goopy pity. Other than that… I ended up feeling sorry for her when she was talking about her marriage. I do think she loves Chris Martin, and I think she worries that he’s bangin’ Kate Bosworth and God knows who else while he’s touring. But notice that she makes it all about her and her stuff, her career, how he feels about her? That’s because Dame Goopy is the most important person in the world.

Harper’s Bazaar pics courtesy of Bazaar online.