Gwyneth Paltrow refuses to read 'anything about myself at all'

NEW YORK – Gwyneth Paltrow has learned to never read the comments.

The A-lister made a long-awaited return to dramatic acting in the hit ping-pong epic "Marty Supreme" (now in theaters), playing a washed-up Hollywood star named Kay Stone who has a fling with unscrupulous athlete Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet).

In what is perhaps the movie's most devastating scene, Marty walks in on Kay sobbing during the opening-night party for her new play, after receiving a nasty review of her performance.

It's an experience that Paltrow, 53, has tried to avoid altogether.

"I don't read reviews – I haven't since I was about 22," Paltrow tells USA TODAY. "I try not to read anything about myself at all, but sometimes things slip through the cracks."

Gwyneth Paltrow wants to hang this review 'on my mirror'

But there are exceptions: Recently, Paltrow was doing an interview when a journalist read back a New York Times review of her Oscar-winning turn in 1998's "Shakespeare in Love."

"Paltrow, in her first great, fully realized starring performance, makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light," critic Janet Maslin wrote at the time.

"I thought, 'Maybe I should print this out and put it on my mirror,'" Paltrow says now with a smile. "That would feel really good. It's pretty nice!"

"Marty Supreme" director Josh Safdie learned the hard way to never read your own press: In 2008, he cowrote, directed and starred in the drama "The Pleasure of Being Robbed." It was his first movie, and he was only 24 when it screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

"I got a review and this guy was like: 'Halfway through the film, I wanted Josh to get hit by a truck. And I'm not talking about the character – I'm talking about the writer and director of this film,'" Safdie recalls. "And I was like: 'He wants me to die? What did I do to this person?' So I stopped reading reviews after that."

Paltrow recalls the 'nicest' part of making 'Marty Supreme'

Over the past 15 years, Paltrow has primarily focused on her family and lifestyle brand Goop, making only occasional appearances in TV comedies and Marvel movies. Safdie wanted to help make her return to serious dramas as comfortable as possible, and so he started by filming a meta sequence of Kay walking out on stage to thunderous applause.

"I organized it so that the first thing we shot was her return to the stage," Safdie says. "Gwyneth turned to me and said, 'I hope I remember how to do this!' I was like, 'Oh, my God.' There was a real vulnerability and humility there. You're like, 'Oh, this is why you are who you are.'"

"You did that on purpose? Oh, my God, that was the nicest thing," Paltrow says. "That made a huge difference for me. Having grown up in the theater and just doing a million plays, I was like, 'I'm just back doing a play!' It was so nice."