Gwyneth Paltrow Accepts the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award | Women in Entertainment 2025

6 weeks ago

Gwyneth Paltrow takes the stage at THR's Women in Entertainment gala to accept the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award and thank the women in her life who inspired her to be a leader.

Transcript

00:00Robert, I love you so much.

00:05You are the older brother that I never had

00:10and wasn't sure I wanted, but I guess...

00:17I'm so grateful to you for being the best partner on screen,

00:22for being always the most honest and brilliant reflection back,

00:26not just about me but about us, our families, the world,

00:30and thank you for getting up at what must have been an ungodly hour

00:35for you to do your hair and come all the way here from Malibu.

00:40I love you so, so much.

00:43Oh my gosh, I'm shaking. Okay.

00:46Thank you so much for this.

00:49Sherry, it's such an honor to be given this award in your name.

00:53Sherry, when I started, Sherry was like the most formidable, badass woman in Hollywood,

01:02and also so beautiful and graceful.

01:05You were combining, you know, you were an amalgamation of all of these incredible archetypes

01:10and leading the way for us all.

01:12So I'm so proud to get this award.

01:16Bearing your name.

01:18I really feel so galvanized being in the room with all of these amazing women,

01:25and this has been an incredible homecoming of sorts, I guess.

01:31And I think because I went to the all-girls school, Spence, with Kerry Washington,

01:38I grew up really with this model of female respect that's really served as scaffolding for me.

01:48And I was really taught there to see that the brilliant insight of a classmate

01:53was like a stepping stone for myself and my own thinking and not a diminishment in any way.

01:58And so from 11 to 17, essentially I was taught how to be in community with women,

02:06these incredibly, like, smart, cool New York City women,

02:11this sort of pre-Internet, New Order-loving, you know, group of girls

02:17who were creating culture for ourselves by how each of us interpreted what we saw, right?

02:23Our uniforms, Madonna's rubber bracelets, and Kate Chopin,

02:29all the literature we were studying and always building on each other's reinterpretations.

02:35And there was never any competition between any of us,

02:38just the idea that we could use the creative and intellectual musings of our peers

02:44to be really bold about who we wanted to be.

02:48And I think this time in my life set me up to be a woman who reveres good women,

02:55women who are smarter than I am and more talented than I am,

02:59women who are expressive and really fearless.

03:04And it gave me the springboard into how I approach my career as an actor, as an artist,

03:11and as a founder of Goop, working largely with women with the express purpose of enriching female lives,

03:22I always felt that I was somebody who understood that the team was worth more as a sum than the parts of us.

03:30And I think it also gave me the courage to venture into my nature as a woman who felt I could unlock something for myself

03:39and maybe other women if I did things my own way.

03:44So leaving all my comfortable rooms and identities, you know, to start a family abroad and become an expat,

03:52and then an entrepreneur to the cries of,

03:55oh my God, what the fuck is she doing?

03:59But my life thus far has been so weird and rich and full of mysteries and heartbreaks and revelations and breakthroughs.

04:15So if I can be called a leader at all, I don't think it's because of anything I've achieved,

04:21but because I've just kept declaring myself the whole way through at all costs,

04:27regardless of reactions or perceptions or misperceptions,

04:33I just keep trying to identify who I actually am at every stage and chapter

04:39and living from that place in the truest way I know how,

04:43as an artist and a mother and a sister and a founder.

04:49And many, many times the world has declared back to me that I'm not doing it right,

04:56that my ideas are too new and that people would prefer me this way or that way.

05:02And yet I just keep declaring myself as messy or surprising or controversial as it may be at times.

05:14So to be among all of you women and the men who love us at this beautiful Hollywood Reporter event,

05:25to all the 100 women who are named today, to be here among you is really, it's really a gift.

05:32I really feel it.

05:34And I have a real felt sense of this community this morning,

05:40a community that seems to be okay with me and all my iterations and has welcomed me back.

05:47Before I go, I just want to say a quick thank you to my anchor, my husband, Brad Falchuk,

06:06who's the most feminist man I know and the most loving, who lets me be my full self every day.

06:13And thank you to women here and not here, Aline and Brenna and Eda and Cameron and Reese and Lake

06:26and Kate Hudson and Penelope and all the women in this business that have been by my side all of these years.

06:33And congratulations to Jennifer, such an amazing example of this powerful declaration of being who you are.

06:41Thank you all of you at The Hollywood Reporter and Lifetime for having me here today.

06:47And have a beautiful rest of your day.

Gwyneth Paltrow Accepts the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award | Women in Entertainment 2025

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