As she prepares to become a mother for the first time, Gwyneth Paltrow is taking inspiration from her own mother, Blythe Danner, who put her acting career on hold to raise Paltrow and her brother, Jake.

"My mother turned down every fantastic movie there was," Paltrow tells W magazine for its June issue. "She turned down these amazing things that would have made her a huge movie star."

Now that the 31-year-old actress is expecting a child - though she won't say when she's due - with her husband, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, she proclaims, "I might not work for ages."

"There are certain women in this business who have children, and I just think, 'You must never, literally never, see them,"' Paltrow says. "You can't do movies back to back to back and see your child if they go to school."