'No One Would Even Look at Me': What Really Happened on 'Shallow Hal' Set, According to Explosive New Gwyneth Paltrow Book
Gwyneth Paltrow was in for a rude awakening when strangers reacted to her 'Shallow Hal' appearance.
July 28 2025, Published 4:45 p.m. ET
Gwyneth Paltrow was able to shed her celebrity status completely and found out what it was like to feel unappealing and unnoticed while trying out her Shallow Hal fat suit in public, in an excerpt obtained by RadarOnline.com.
The actress, 51, wore a 25-pound rubber suit in the film to make it appear that the 120-pound star weighed 350 pounds. Before filming got underway in 2000, Paltrow walked the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, where the movie was shot, and was horrified by the response, according to Amy Odell's new book, Gwyneth: The Biography.
Odell claims Paltrow had a deep aversion to being overweight, and in her high school yearbook had called obesity her “worst fear."
Treated Like an 'Obstacle'
A witness felt 'pained' by the reactions to Paltrow in her fat suit.
In the 2001 Farrelly Brothers comedy, Jack Black played Hal, a womanizer who only sought out stunning, slender women. After a mind-altering experience with a self-help guru, Hal only saw a woman's "inner beauty," which caused him to fall for Paltrow's Rosemary. Despite weighing more than 300 pounds, Hal's eyes saw the sweet blonde as skinny and stunning.
Paltrow put on the six-piece suit that transformed every inch of her figure to make it appear she was morbidly obese. She then set out on the streets of Charlotte to experience what it felt like to be in a completely different body.
Odell writes: "None of the pedestrians knew that a major movie was in their midst. They mostly ignored her, or skirted around her body like an obstacle dropped in their path."
The film's line producer, Barry Teague, was "instructed to stay close," but not close enough so that Paltrow felt alone in public. As Teague himself weighed 325 pounds, he "felt pained as he watched the scene play out before him."
Harsh Reactions
The film's producer revealed it was 'difficult to watch' how people treated Paltrow when she was unrecognizable in her fat suit.
Due to the weight of the costume, Paltrow "moved more slowly than everyone else and blocked most of the width of the sidewalk. Pedestrians couldn’t step off the curb to pass by because cars were parked, so they had to squeeze around her single file on the other side."
Odell writes how "Teague watched two attractive, middle-aged men hurry around her like she was a trash can, without saying 'excuse me' or regarding her at all," while "a pair of teenage girls gawked as she passed, then giggled to each other as she walked away."
Paltrow did the walk "a few times before stopping at a hot dog stand. Teatue "noticed how impatient the crowd behind her got, seemingly for no other reason than her being fat."
The star called it quits after about 20 minutes of walking around, with the exercise appearing "too distressing for her to finish."
Teague said the experience was "difficult to watch."
'No One Would Look at Me'
Paltrow thought going out in her fat suit would be 'funny' and had the opposite experience.
Paltrow recalled taking the suit out for a test run in New York City before production got underway, and the reaction was a rude awakening to the Iron Man star.
"No one would even look at me," she remembered. "If I was walking by a table, you know how naturally you just glance up."
“But people would see that I was heavy in their peripheral vision and not look, because I think they assume that’s the polite thing to do. It was incredibly isolating and really lonely and sad … I didn’t expect it to feel so upsetting,” she heartbreakingly spilled.
"I thought the whole thing would be funny, and then as soon as I put it on, I thought, well, you know, this isn’t all funny."
Flashing the Crew
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Paltrow was accused of behaving badly on the set of 'Shallow Hal.'
When Paltrow was on set during filming, she was accused of bratty behavior by those around her.
"Sometimes she felt like she was maybe more talented or more in-demand than other people, and you could see that," Teague claimed in the book.
"You could hear her eyes rolling sometimes," he noted. Odell claims that when Paltrow finished up a scene with an actor she didn't like, who scored a bit part in the film, "she walked away, poking a finger in her mouth, miming throwing up."
In another instance, according to Odell, Paltrow went underwear-free in a short skirt and flashed the camera operators. One of the crew told her dresser, Cookie Lopez. "Cookie, she’s flashing us. You might want to tell her to sit differently."
Lopez looked at him and said: "There’s nothing I can do." He said, "You don’t want to tell her so she can change what she’s doing?"
Lopez replied: "If she likes doing that, I can’t get her to stop."
