A modern family.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Falchuk got real about their roles as stepparents to their respective kids on the Sept. 27 episode of the Goop podcast, coinciding with the actress' 50th birthday.
Despite already being a mom-of-two, Gwyneth admitted that taking on the stepmother role was a bit daunting for her in the beginning. (Gwyneth and Brad tied the knot in 2018 after four years of dating and she became stepmom to his kids Isabella, 18 and Brody, 16 with ex Suzanne Bukinik.)
"There's just no playbook for how to do it," she explained. "I think there's this like archetypal evil stepmother and this inference it's going to be this fraught thing, so I came into it on tender hooks like, 'Oh my gosh, you can only kind of do the wrong thing.'"
Calling her "trepidation" her "one regret," the Glee alum said it took some time to get her confidence up, but she eventually found her voice, which "shifted everything."
"However many years ago I was like, ‘F--k it, these are my kids. I love them. I'm not gonna like be scared to discipline them,'" she said. "If someone asked me for advice on it, I would just say from day one, just really treat them as your kid."
She added, "I just wish I had done that earlier."
Despite Gwyneth's initial apprehension, Brad, 51, praised her relationship with his kids, calling the Oscar winner a "spectacular stepmom."
"You have a relationship with them outside of me," he noted. "They talk to you all the time, they come to you for advice all the time, they rely on you."
In return, Gwyneth complimented Brad as "such a good stepfather, like exceptionally good" and asked the TV producer if he came into their marriage with a strategy for being a steddad.
"I think you have to define yourself as a stepparent the way you would define yourself as a parent, like, ‘Who am I in terms of archetype dad?'" Brad responded. "To me that just means providing stability and guidance and a sense of boundaries for the household and for the family. Also just trying to be a guide to them from my experience and and and and my wisdom."
The Goop founder shares daughter Apple, 18, and son Moses, 16 with ex Chris Martin, who Brad calls "a great dad," and "a lot more fun" than he is.
"The great thing is I don't have to be their dad," he said. "I don't have to provide the things their dad provides for them. He loves them and spends time with them and all that stuff. So, all I have to do is just be 'dad' when I'm the dad in the house."
Thanking his wife for supporting him whenever he did have to be disciplinarian, Brad explained that he sees Apple and Moses in a "very sort of unique special way.
"It's just coming in it with that confidence where I'm not trying to place their dad," he continued. "But I am a dad to them and I've been lucky that there wasn't a huge amount of resistance to that."
He added, "Fundamentally, I love them like they're mine, because they are."