Gwyneth Paltrow Once Caught Bill Clinton Sleeping Through One of Her Movies

Gwyneth Paltrow's Hot Ones appearance sure was spicy! The 51-year-old Oscar winner sat down with host Sean Evans for a new episode of the popular interview show, spilling the story of the time former President Bill Clinton slept through a special screening of her movie Emma at the White House.

"Is it true that Bill Clinton passed out asleep during a White House screening of Emma?" Evans asked, as Paltrow burst out laughing. "True," she confessed. "He was snoring right in front of me. I was like, 'Wow, I guess this is going to be a real hit movie.'" She added playfully, "But it was, so f— you, Bill Clinton!" 

Emma, a 1996 period comedy directed by Douglas McGrath, followed Paltrow's Emma Woodhouse, a woman in early 19th-century England who plays matchmaker in her social circles until she ultimately marries. The film is based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel of the same name and also stars Toni Collette, Alan Cumming, Ewan McGregor and Jeremy Northam. Emma would go on to gross $40 million at the box office worldwide and was nominated for two Academy Awards – Best Costume Design and Best Music.

Paltrow would go on to win an Oscar in 1999 for her starring role in the period romance Shakespeare in Love, which also featured the actress playing an English character. Paltrow told Evans of learning how to speak with a British accent, "So, I had grown up making prank calls doing accents, that kind of thing and making my friends laugh, but it turns out to actually do it properly you have to re-learn how to speak."

"So, the English accent is so different and the muscles are so different, like where you place the tongue on the teeth and the mouth is so different," she continued. "Like, certain muscles are more relaxed and certain are more tense. So I think you really get the opportunity to use the language and really hear because it's so different when you're in an academic setting trying to learn, as opposed to being in a conversation."

The Goop founder, who has taken a step back from acting in recent years, also offered her insight into how Hollywood has changed throughout her career. "I think, if I look at the industry as a whole, this sort of big push into superhero movies – you can only make so many good ones that feel truly original, and yet they're still always trying to reach as many people as possible, which sometimes hinders quality or specificity or a real point of view," she said. "You're absolutely right, I grew up doing those movies, and I sometimes lament the fact that I look back at some of the movies I made in the '90s and think, 'That just wouldn't get made now.'"