Paltrow began her career on the stage, appearing in productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her stage credits include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Picnic, The Seagull and As You Like It. She made her feature film debut in Shout in 1991. Her other big screen credits include Hook, Flesh and Bone, Seven, Emma, Great Expectations, Sliding Doors, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Duets, Bounce, The Royal Tenenbaums, Sylvia, Shallow Hal, Proof for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, Running with Scissors, Iron Man, Two Lovers and the forthcoming Iron Man 2. She won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.
Three Sisters focuses on the lives of Olga, Masha and Irina, three sisters of Russian gentry, who try to fill their days in order to construct a life that feels meaningful. The sisters are refined and cultured young women who grew up in urban Moscow; however, for the past 11 years they have been living in a small provincial town. Moscow is a major symbolic element: the sisters are always dreaming of it and constantly express their desire to return. They identify Moscow with their happiness, and thus to them it represents the perfect life.
The Daily Mail speculates that Paltrow would play Olga, the eldest sister, who is a spinster schoolteacher.
Three Sisters would play the West End’s Haymarket Theatre as the third production after the current Waiting for Godot, starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, and the expected upcoming Breakfast at Tiffany’s, starring Anna Friel and Joseph Cross in director Sean Mathias' season there.