Paltrow suffered depression

Gwyneth Paltrow has told how the death of her father left her struggling with clinical depression.

The actress also admitted that the experience of playing suicidal poet Sylvia Plath in her latest film was uncomfortably close to her own grief.

"I was so raw and so torn apart, and in such a horrible place, that my life and Sylvia's overlapped quite a bit," she revealed.

Paltrow, 31, was speaking in an interview in Los Angeles on the first anniversary of the death of her father, film and TV director Bruce.

She told how his death, two days before filming began, left her unsure whether to carry on with the part.

"I don't know how I got through it," she said.

Sylvia, which tells the story of her life, marriage, depression and ultimately suicide in London, has been slated by critics.

It was described by one American film critic as a "terrible, poorly executed movie" which would attract a "firestorm of criticism".

The only good review came from the New Yorker, the literary magazine famous for contributing to Plath's chronic depression by rejecting most of her work.

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