Gwyneth Paltrow failed to call an ambulance when she suffered "heart attack" symptoms because she didn't know the emergency services number.

The Hollywood actress, 53, has revealed her health suffered following the death of her father Bruce Paltrow in 2002 and the grief led to a terrifying incident in which she woke up in the middle of the night fearing she was having cardiac issues - but she wasn't able to call for help because she was in London and didn't know the UK uses 999 instead of 911.

During an appearance on The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast, Gwyneth explained: "I felt like I was going to die of grief ... There was one night where I woke up and I thought I was having a heart attack in London. And the only reason I didn't call an ambulance was 'cos I didn't know it's 999 [in Britain] not 911 [as in America]. I was so racked with grief ... "

After the loss of her father, Gwyneth took on the role of tragic poet Sylvia Plath in 2003 film Sylvia and she explained working on the movie helped her deal with her grief.

She said: "It [Sylvia] kind of saved my life ... It's really the way that I process through things. It's the way I access the darker parts of myself that I don't like that much and let them come up and out.

"I unearth things that way. Which is probably why I'm such a b**** when I'm not acting. I'm kidding ... But I really use it as a took to metabolise and get stuff out so it was such a blessing having to get up everyday and have somewhere to go ...

"Just so to have the structure of the day so have somewhere to get up and go and all day long I was just mining it [the grief] and letting it out and letting it out.

"And listening to Sigur Ros and sobbing and letting it out and it really saved me."

Gwyneth met Coldplay star Chris Martin just weeks after the death of her father and she later moved to the UK with him. They became parents to two children, Apple, 21, and Moses, 19, before splitting in 2014 after a decade of marriage.

The Iron Man star announced the news of the divorce using the phrase "consciously uncoupling" and she recently admitted the drama surrounding the split cost her a movie role.

Speaking on Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast, she said: "I was meant to do a movie and it was right after the conscious uncoupling thing with Chris.

"The distributor was like, this might be too hot to touch.

"That was great because I was getting a divorce and then I got fired, that was so awesome."

The Goop founder admitted she can understand why some people got "angry" about the choice of phrase, especially if they had gone through difficult or "nasty" splits from their own partners.

She said: "Say you'd had a really nasty divorce or your parents had a nasty divorce and then you hear, it doesn't have to be done this way.

"Is the inference that I messed someone up? I do understand why it was so personal for people. You only see that kind of reaction when it's personal. When we're hurt, we say things we don't mean. We get angry, we respond. That's humanity."