Gwyneth Paltrow shares painful memories of filming The Talented Mr. Ripley

Gwyneth Paltrow has reflected on the family life struggles she lived through while filming The Talented Mr. Ripley.

The 52-year-old American star was revered for her performance as Marge Sherwood in the 1999 psychological thriller.

But she faced deep emotional battles while filming the project - most of all when production moved to Naples to film key scenes.

In her latest edition of The Goop Podcast, Paltrow revealed she was recording the episode from the Italian city with a mix of emotions.

She said, "We shot a day of The Talented Mr. Ripley here in the Opera House many years ago now.

"Movies like that really afforded me an incredible opportunity to see the world. Some experiences were happier than others. Ripley, in fact, was a really tough movie for me."

The star continued, "My father and my grandfather were both diagnosed with cancer within six weeks of each other when I was on that film. And I was in a very tough place personally.

"And it's interesting, you know, coming back to a certain place again, older, happier, more settled in a different frame of mind completely."

Paltrow went on to recall how she returned to Italy to celebrate her 30th birthday and her father, Bruce, who died on the trip due to complications from oral cancer and pneumonia.

Paltrow said, "My father and I ended up doing a road trip together from Tuscany, we were going up to get to Portofino.

"And unfortunately he got sick and he died on the way with complications of cancer and his bronchioles that we did not know had come back. But as you can imagine, this sort of solidified my complicated feelings about Italy. And yet I've always been so drawn to it."

She went on to reveal she visited the area once again with her now husband Brad Falchuk where they fell for the scenery so much they bought a property there which they consider "a second home to us."