It is a genre-defining romantic comedy that tells the story of a woman whose entire life subconsciously depends on her making it to a certain train journey.
And as Sliding Doors celebrates its 25th anniversary since its release, we take a look behind the scenes of the movie that was shot in the late 1990s.
After rising to fame following her breakout role in Peter Pan spin-off Hook, Gwyneth Paltrow was drafted as the leading lady in the cult classic.
The actress, who was 24 at the time, played Helen opposite John Hannah as her love interest James, who comes into her life after he picks up her earrings from the floor in a London Underground station lift.
In one reality, Helen catches the train and sits next to James, before heading home to discover her boyfriend Gerry in bed with his American ex-girlfriend, Lydia.
Iconic: Sliding Doors celebrates its 25th anniversary since its release, we take a look at the behind-the-scenes secrets of when the film was shot in the late 1990s
Helen packs her bags and moves in with her friend Anna, before striking up a romance with James, whom she had met on the subway.
In an alternate reality, Helen misses the same train and is then robbed when she gets off the next one, leaving her hospitalized and ultimately missing to catch Gerry and Lydia in the act.
The film then follows the two stories as viewers watch Helen’s life play out after the “sliding door” moment changes her future.
Speaking about his experience working with Gwyneth at a recent Sliding Doors 25th Anniversary screening, director Peter Howitt suggested that the star was stubborn from an early age.
He admitted that some of the filming – it was his first time directing – had been fraught and at one point Gwyneth, then just 24 years old, had said to him, “Let it go, Pete.”
The event was hosted by Jennie Becker, founder and host of the Sliding doors podcast discussing life-changing moments.
She recently released a new miniseries on the podcast called, SD25featuring interviews with the film’s cast and director.
During a segment with John Hannah, the actor described the hilarious behind-the-scenes moment where Gwyneth, who is now a health and lifestyle guru, discovered a British “chip butty” [a bread roll with chio while shooting in London.
John said: ‘Before we started shooting, you know how the crew all go and do reccys, they check out various locations and stuff.
Starring role: After shooting to stardom following her breakthrough role in Peter Pan spin-off Hook, Gwyneth Paltrow was lined up as the leading lady in the cult classic
‘So we had a little mini bus one day and we did a reccy of the locations, that doesn’t sound much but I don’t think I’ve ever been invited onto a reccy on any other job that I’ve done.
‘We went round and looked at places and said that’s where we’ll do that and this, then we said let’s go and get some lunch.
‘We got some fish and chips from some famous chippy on Marlebone Road, I remember I had a bread roll with my fish and chips and I made a chip butty.
‘Gwyneth was just like “what? what are you doing? that’s carbs on carbs!” I was like, “it’s a roll of chips, it’s brilliant.”
Offering his opinion on co-staring with Gwyneth, he said: ‘It was terrific. I thought she was great. She was fun, she was present, she was great, her accent was great.
‘She played two characters with an accent.’
He went on to give another nugget of information about what went on behind the scenes, revealing that they previously considered another male lead before him.
Chance meeting: The actress, who was 24 at the time, starred as Helen opposite John Hannah as her love interest James, who comes into her life after he picks her earrings up off the floor at in a lift at a London Underground tube station
John said they wanted someone taller, but eventually fixed the logistical issue.
He said: ‘She [Gwyneth] was taller than me, but they can always put lifts in my shoes. I got Tom Cruise elevators, I felt like I made it, you know.
“At first they wanted to get a bigger actor, but then they grabbed me and just made me bigger. But it was great, it was a great feeling and Pete was lovely. It was a good experience.’
Elsewhere during episode two of the podcast series, Peter revealed how they helped the audience figure out which timeline they were watching.
Peter said, “We had so many conversations during pre-production about how we were going to let the audience know where they are. How do we make sure it doesn’t get confusing?
“We didn’t want it to be confusing, what’s the point? You want it to be fun and fun to watch, so we decided to have one story on the left and the other on the right.”
What will it be? The film then follows the two stories as viewers watch Helen’s life play out after the “sliding door moment” changes her future.
“I don’t want you to know that, I just hope that maybe somewhere subconsciously, the fact that we went from story G to J [Gerry and James]. We would go from left to right.
“For example, if they’re both drunk at the end of the first night and Anna takes Helen into the bedroom, she’ll sweep her from side to side.
And Gerry brings her home and puts her on the bed and he moves her from right to left. We had no idea if that would help, but subconsciously we hoped that the story would be placed on a different side of your brain.
“We didn’t want the audience to say ‘oh I know what they’re doing’ look left and right. It wasn’t meant to be that specific.
“But we wanted to help the audience, because we didn’t want them to get lost, because when they’re lost, they just stop looking.”
Another major – and probably the most notable – difference between each story is Gwyneth’s hairstyle.
The film’s producer, Phillipa Braithwaiste, revealed the eye-watering cost of the haircut because Gwyneth insisted on flying out her own hairdresser.
She said, “We decided on the haircut pretty early on because when we started pitching to all these movie companies, most people really liked it to be honest, but they couldn’t quite understand how we were going to do it.
“I think Peter and I decided early on that we just cut her hair and in the other have it long, her real hair was the short hair and probably the most expensive haircut in history because Gwyneth quite rightly – she had beautiful hair – wanted her hairdresser to come over from New York, so we had to fly him over by concordat.
‘It ended up costing £5,000 for that haircut. Then we had a wig made, the long hair was the wig.’