Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influence their work. On Sunday nights
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early two thousand's, you would
Speaker 1: hear this in homes all over the country. In six
Speaker 1: seasons and two feature films, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha
Speaker 1: navigated the complexities of single life in New York City.
Speaker 1: When HBO's Sex in the City wrapped in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: it left millions of empty Cosmopolitan glasses in its wake
Speaker 1: and changed brunch conversations forever. All four of its actresses
Speaker 1: became major stars, most notably the show's narrator and my
Speaker 1: guest today, Sarah Jessica Parker. I Am someone who is
Speaker 1: looking for love, real love. Parker's professional career began long
Speaker 1: before she became Carrie Bradshaw. At eleven, she made her
Speaker 1: Broadway debut in The Innocence. She went on to star
Speaker 1: in films opposite Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, and Steve Martin,
Speaker 1: but Sex in the City brought Parker a different kind
Speaker 1: of success. Parker the actress became Parker the celebrity, fashion
Speaker 1: icon television producer. Today, Sarah Jessica Parker is also a mother.
Speaker 1: She has three kids under third Team. The decision to
Speaker 1: become a mother was not one Parker took lightly. When
Speaker 1: you're one of eight children and there isn't a lot
Speaker 1: and you are struggling, you don't think that this I'd
Speaker 1: like to replicate this. Yeah, you don't want to give
Speaker 1: your siblings your real address? No, you think, gosh, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to have my own space. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to own address that was mine to begin with. That
Speaker 1: wasn't seven or eight other people's. You have that now, though?
Speaker 1: Don't you address that your own? Do? And I understand
Speaker 1: that actually that isn't as fulfilling as one might have
Speaker 1: imagined as an eight year old. But I really wanted
Speaker 1: a lack of chaos. I wanted I enjoyed it my
Speaker 1: siblings and I'm in I'm mad and really quite taken
Speaker 1: with them now and have been for many years. But
Speaker 1: I didn't think at the time that I wanted to
Speaker 1: recreate that. When it last I was on my own.
Speaker 1: You know, it was insane in our home and in
Speaker 1: your childhood. You started working very young, you were you
Speaker 1: were a child actor your eight and what do you
Speaker 1: remember about your childhood. I'm not certain how we sort
Speaker 1: of recreate how we felt about our childhood, because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want it any other way. I wouldn't want I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to sort of fix the things that were painful,
Speaker 1: or change the disappointments to triumphs or the struggles to ease.
Speaker 1: I remember everything about my childhood, and I think the
Speaker 1: memories are vivid because it was a very vivid life.
Speaker 1: It was a colorful, energetic, unpredictable, exciting, scary, sad, ebulent life.
Speaker 1: And um, I think I benefited from that in countless ways,
Speaker 1: far more than I would have if it had been
Speaker 1: easy and care free and without concern and worry. I
Speaker 1: think I loved working because it allowed me something of
Speaker 1: my own time to myself, something that I felt was mine.
Speaker 1: Were your siblings performers, any of them? My brother Toby
Speaker 1: was an actor, um, and was started working before me,
Speaker 1: and then we eventually worked together a number of times.
Speaker 1: And I think he would also say that he loved
Speaker 1: this independence from his siblings money. Knowing that we had this,
Speaker 1: we were creating like a past. Remember your past. Look
Speaker 1: at the bank you you and I have that in Comay.
Speaker 1: So all of those were wonderful. Going home was a
Speaker 1: little dreary after a day of independence. But I think
Speaker 1: about days that I didn't want to be in my home,
Speaker 1: and I think about days that I got to be
Speaker 1: out working as an actor, that you know, getting through
Speaker 1: the days that that I found not always super pleasant. Um,
Speaker 1: I earned those days away. I earned the five dollars
Speaker 1: they gave me from my dinner money or this opportunity
Speaker 1: to pretend to be somebody else. So I liked the
Speaker 1: balance of the suffering and the reward. Is that crazy? No? No,
Speaker 1: I think that. I remember when when I worked and
Speaker 1: I got a job, and I remember I just felt strange.
Speaker 1: I mean they I did a television soap opera in
Speaker 1: New York. There was the lowest rated soap opera. I
Speaker 1: did the Doctors on NBC before they were canceled. Were
Speaker 1: you a doctor? No, I was the bastard son. I
Speaker 1: was a swindling son of a doctor, this scion, and
Speaker 1: I get this job they pay you. I was twenty
Speaker 1: and I get the job and they pay me the
Speaker 1: minimum and I get a check for whatever. Like the
Speaker 1: first year, I remember sitting there thinking I make more
Speaker 1: money than my dad, who's been teaching for twenty eight
Speaker 1: years at a public school. And I felt funny. I
Speaker 1: felt weird, Like people will always sometimes smack you or
Speaker 1: swat you and say, what do you know? You're out
Speaker 1: of touch because you all you people are so overpaid
Speaker 1: And there's a part of me sits there and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is kind of crazy, but but I
Speaker 1: have to ask you a question. Wait, let me just
Speaker 1: go back, because I think it is curious when you're
Speaker 1: criticized or or there's a conversation around sort that you
Speaker 1: might be out of touch or you're not you know,
Speaker 1: you don't recognize what it means to work hard. On
Speaker 1: one hand, you can say it is true, um, lots
Speaker 1: of people make absurd amounts of money, and none of
Speaker 1: it's just none of it makes sense and none of
Speaker 1: it's fair and it's but I think the accusation of
Speaker 1: your being out of touch or you're not aware of
Speaker 1: what it means to work hard, that's the part of
Speaker 1: that kind of charge that I am most frustrated by.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of people I know who work in entertainment, theater,
Speaker 1: show business didn't come from anything and simply worked incredibly hard.
Speaker 1: And we're willing to work hard and earn nothing, and
Speaker 1: every now and then a job comes along that does
Speaker 1: pay and that you know, that's wonderful, and almost everybody
Speaker 1: I know is thrilled and appreciative. So the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, we're sort of blithely going through life, you know,
Speaker 1: not aware of um out of whack it is and
Speaker 1: how lucky we are too. And then and the other
Speaker 1: part of that I find is that other people have
Speaker 1: jobs where there's a meritorious system of a sentencing. You
Speaker 1: go to high school, you do well, you get the
Speaker 1: good s, A T s, you get the g p A,
Speaker 1: you get the right scores, You go to Harvard, and
Speaker 1: in our business you can be great and do great work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean anything. Do the mean you're gonna move up.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the most successful people are not the most talented
Speaker 1: people in terms of the kind of complexity they're acting.
Speaker 1: If you will, Yeah, and I think I'm predictable nature,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's it's impossible, you know, to compare
Speaker 1: career trajectories and paths and choices. But there are things
Speaker 1: that are you know, obviously very unstable about making these
Speaker 1: life choices. And and most people, you know, really everybody
Speaker 1: I admire basically has not really you know, hit the
Speaker 1: pay dirt the way that I think they should have.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I'm particularly sensitive to the idea
Speaker 1: that I that I'm not aware of what it means
Speaker 1: to work hard, and that I'm not aware of the
Speaker 1: imbalance of you know, the sort of It's not you know,
Speaker 1: for me, what is interesting is you and men. Eventually
Speaker 1: you become very famous. It's you, it's Mary Tyler Moore,
Speaker 1: it's Gene Stapleton, and you become one of the most
Speaker 1: prominent women in the history of television. Before Sex in
Speaker 1: the City, when someone hired you, what were they hiring
Speaker 1: you for? Well, they were usually hiring me to play uh.
Speaker 1: For a while, I was the cerebral best friend of
Speaker 1: the pretty lead girl, subversive or UH. Could be a
Speaker 1: clever person, witty, um, maybe bitter, uh, you know, funny, buoyant, um, wise, cracking,
Speaker 1: but not overly confident UM. So that I found enormous
Speaker 1: pleasure in and I felt, why would I complain? You
Speaker 1: know this is the career. This is the journeyman career
Speaker 1: I always dreamed of having. This was the career I wanted,
Speaker 1: And so that was the kind of Those were the roles,
Speaker 1: never the lead, you know, foot loose. I was the spirited,
Speaker 1: best end of Lorie Singer. She was the beautiful, withholding,
Speaker 1: I don't know, desirable lead. And but one once again
Speaker 1: I will say, and I couldn't mean this, And it's
Speaker 1: not that I'm looking back on it fondly and kind
Speaker 1: of creating affection for a time or a place. I
Speaker 1: really I thought I had it all. I would work
Speaker 1: in the theater all the time, I would play these
Speaker 1: smaller parts in movies, I would do television shows. Um,
Speaker 1: I thought I had everything a person could ever want
Speaker 1: and hope for. And I would never have been so
Speaker 1: bold as to as to say I did want more
Speaker 1: than that. I assumed that the leads were really only
Speaker 1: made for a particular type of girl and then woman,
Speaker 1: and I understood that I just wasn't going to ever
Speaker 1: be that person. And I talked myself into believing that
Speaker 1: the roles that I got to play were more complex people.
Speaker 1: They were more nuanced, they were more interesting. Sometimes that
Speaker 1: was the case, not always, but the opportunity to work,
Speaker 1: to move from job to job was the best because
Speaker 1: I was constantly figuring out new relationships, new people. How
Speaker 1: did they work? How do I work? What do I
Speaker 1: want to do? Like they do? What? I think? You
Speaker 1: make a lot of films, I remember that, but all
Speaker 1: the people you could those days of like running to
Speaker 1: a pay phone checking your voicemail I mean sorry, checking
Speaker 1: your answering machine. It was like you're like, oh, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of calls. It's a lot of calls. You
Speaker 1: have thirty nine messaging messages. Just the potential of that
Speaker 1: next job. Also the romantic relationships that exist when you're
Speaker 1: moving that quickly and you're young, and you're I don't
Speaker 1: know all of it. I think was I couldn't have
Speaker 1: planned it any better in a way. And then what happened?
Speaker 1: And then um, Kevin Euvaine, my agent of twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty years now, rang me and said, there's this pilot
Speaker 1: script a guy named Darren starred you know who and
Speaker 1: star as. I said, yes, I know, certainly do Melrose Place,
Speaker 1: um Beverly Hills nine at two and oh he he said,
Speaker 1: he's written this pilot. He says he's written it with
Speaker 1: you in mind. So Starr told you, Vane, he wrote
Speaker 1: this with you in mind. Correct. Kevin Evane told me
Speaker 1: that that's what Darren Starr had had shared with him.
Speaker 1: Would I read the script? Um? I read the script
Speaker 1: right away. I was really kind of confounded by the
Speaker 1: idea that I was a voice that would have come
Speaker 1: to mind because she was so this part of Carrie
Speaker 1: Bradshaw was so unlike anything I'd ever played. And the
Speaker 1: book had come out before before um, I would say
Speaker 1: maybe a year and a half, two years to the script.
Speaker 1: He had been clever enough to go to Candice and say,
Speaker 1: can I buy the rights to this and use this
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point. I had been sent the
Speaker 1: book anonymously, I mean just you know, as publishers sometimes
Speaker 1: send people books. I was familiar with this column. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a really clever, interesting take on sexual
Speaker 1: pole ticks. I love the way she wrote. And so
Speaker 1: I met with Darren, and you know, I was busy.
Speaker 1: I was doing a Broadway musical at the time. I
Speaker 1: was shooting movies during the day and going to the
Speaker 1: theater at night, and you know, had two or three
Speaker 1: movies coming out, and he said to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I would love for you to consider this. We met
Speaker 1: at eat on the Upper east Side, which I thought
Speaker 1: was kind of a fancy place. It's expensive, you know,
Speaker 1: the menu is pretty dear like everything on the menu,
Speaker 1: and uh, I said, you know, I don't feel comfortable
Speaker 1: doing nudity. I don't. I think we can be more
Speaker 1: thoughtful about this language. She's a writer. Does she have
Speaker 1: to use the effort? It Isn't she more thoughtful about?
Speaker 1: You know? He kept just saying to everything, every possible
Speaker 1: obstacle I can throw it his way to talk him
Speaker 1: out of hiring me. He had a relatively great convincing
Speaker 1: And have you been successful at talking people out of
Speaker 1: hiring you previously? I think I'd given people lots of
Speaker 1: other ideas, like don't you think Patty clarkson the same one.
Speaker 1: I'm always offered up having Sarks And because I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but I always have these actors in
Speaker 1: my head that I think are more deserving or better
Speaker 1: Frank simply better. I always I always think that. And
Speaker 1: I always think that there were like four or five
Speaker 1: other three named actresses that either they may be meant
Speaker 1: to go to first, and that when I showed up
Speaker 1: there like we didn't mean that, we meant Mary Louise Parker.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he was very convincing and um and really,
Speaker 1: uh just so tenation. He just never let the idea go.
Speaker 1: And and I said, oh, and by the way, between
Speaker 1: you and me and I'm actually getting married, I think
Speaker 1: next week. It was I think I'm getting married next
Speaker 1: week on my night off. He got the day off.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get married. So I don't want to start
Speaker 1: shooting until after we get married. And he said, that's fine,
Speaker 1: we'll figure it out. We'll push it a few days.
Speaker 1: And so I went and did this pilot and, um,
Speaker 1: you know, are you ready to do a TV show? No?
Speaker 1: And to be honest, at the time, HBO is a
Speaker 1: very different network. It was a place that was a
Speaker 1: primarily mailed, mainated um uh network. It was there was
Speaker 1: heavy on the sports and boxing. There were a few
Speaker 1: scripted shows dream on, UM a football show. Um there
Speaker 1: was a football show about a football team. You know.
Speaker 1: It was skewed towards the male audience that existed for
Speaker 1: the for their sports, their great special sports events. And
Speaker 1: so I thought, you know, I'll do this pilot and
Speaker 1: I loved. I thought the script was spectacled, and actually
Speaker 1: I gave it to Matthew and my oldest brother Pippin,
Speaker 1: and they both read it and said, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: you should do this. You've never been offered anything like this.
Speaker 1: The writing is is really really good, it's smart, it's different.
Speaker 1: There's nothing else that they could think of that was
Speaker 1: like it. So I did the pilot. Went on with
Speaker 1: my life and one day I was walking down the
Speaker 1: street and I ran into Merrill poster and she said
Speaker 1: to me. I think I was on my way to
Speaker 1: see a play and she said, oh, I I saw
Speaker 1: your television show. And I said her, what what television show?
Speaker 1: And she said, did you do a pilot it called
Speaker 1: Sexton City. I was like and I literally said, oh,
Speaker 1: that's right, I did. And she said it's good and
Speaker 1: I said it is. I haven't seen it and she said,
Speaker 1: oh no, I just thought I think it's really good.
Speaker 1: I said, okay. So after Merril post the pilot, what
Speaker 1: happens next? I think eventually I saw it or was
Speaker 1: forced to see it, and um, there was this discussion
Speaker 1: of it, you know, going to series, and I then
Speaker 1: tried to get out of it. I went to Kevin Euvaine,
Speaker 1: and I went to, uh, who's a great television agent
Speaker 1: at CIA who ran the televison Lee. Oh God forgive me. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I went to them, called a meeting and said to them, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: you have to help me get out of this. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do a television series. I've rethought this. UM.
Speaker 1: I would like to offer myself up to HBO basically free.
Speaker 1: I will work for them for the next four years.
Speaker 1: I'll do any television movie they want. But I just
Speaker 1: don't think I want to be caught up and tied
Speaker 1: down in a television series. This is after you've seen
Speaker 1: the pilot. After i'd see the pilot. I might not
Speaker 1: have seen the pilot yet. And I just sort of
Speaker 1: rethought my future and panicked, and eventually they producer ended
Speaker 1: up coming on the show. Who I did a movie
Speaker 1: with Miami Rhapsody. They said to me, Look, this is
Speaker 1: We'll tell you about this kind of home. HBO is
Speaker 1: a place where it doesn't feel good. After season one,
Speaker 1: we don't do season two. Don't worry about that. Just
Speaker 1: let's try. They're not going to hold you hostage. I
Speaker 1: went to the set on the first day and I
Speaker 1: never looked back, and every day I got in the
Speaker 1: shower to go to work, I was I was gobsmacked
Speaker 1: by the idea that I didn't want to be anywhere else.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a day that I spent on that set
Speaker 1: that I didn't want to be there. When I think
Speaker 1: of that show, because it was a lot of practical locations,
Speaker 1: and when you guys were on the streets a lot,
Speaker 1: you weren't on the stage much, and I always think
Speaker 1: of you like four chicks in a trailer changing your
Speaker 1: clothes and outside of you here. Yeah, but I loved it.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I loved the work. I love the people,
Speaker 1: I love the storytelling, I love the character I loved it.
Speaker 1: When did you know you guys had gotten them well?
Speaker 1: I felt at the end of the first season, Um,
Speaker 1: we produced the whole first season without being on the air.
Speaker 1: We went on the air, I think while we were
Speaker 1: already into our second season shooting, and even though there
Speaker 1: wasn't a terribly large audience at that time, I just
Speaker 1: felt that the stories we were telling were successful. And
Speaker 1: I think it became really necessary for us as we
Speaker 1: started to face a second and possibly third season that
Speaker 1: it had to get You couldn't hang your hat on
Speaker 1: being titillating. You couldn't hang your hat on, you know,
Speaker 1: Nor did we want to on the story of clothes
Speaker 1: and carrying the story that told. But rather she had
Speaker 1: to start revealing why she was floundering, why why was
Speaker 1: she a mess? And Michael just had some innate, sort
Speaker 1: of preternatural instinct about carry Bradshaw and how to tell
Speaker 1: her story. And he was here. I think Michael was
Speaker 1: you know, grew up with a lot of bun A sisters,
Speaker 1: a lot of important women in his life. He is
Speaker 1: deeply curious about women's stories. He can write women. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really make any sense, although there have been some great,
Speaker 1: great screenwriters who have written I mean, we know them.
Speaker 1: But he just was very, very First of all, he
Speaker 1: loved Carrie Bradshaw. He loved telling her story and was
Speaker 1: as invested in it as I was. And I think
Speaker 1: that's why we were such great partners and producing partners,
Speaker 1: because we were both bitter enders. We will work until
Speaker 1: we were bloody and bloody crossing the finish line. We
Speaker 1: cared about it being as perfect as possible. But he
Speaker 1: loved that girl and he loved those stories, and I
Speaker 1: think when you were that interested and curious about when
Speaker 1: you're a writer like that, it just makes the writing
Speaker 1: that much richer. So King's the head writer, and he's
Speaker 1: a guy with an eye and an ear toward women's stories.
Speaker 1: Was the writing staff a lot of women or was
Speaker 1: it mostly women? The top of each season they would
Speaker 1: meet in a writing room Los Angeles, where a lot
Speaker 1: of them lived at Michael Patrick's you know, home base
Speaker 1: was when he wasn't you know, shooting our show, And
Speaker 1: every now and then a fellow would come along and
Speaker 1: he would sit in the writing room I think at
Speaker 1: the top, you know, and they're breaking story and just
Speaker 1: um kind of give a perspective that was important for
Speaker 1: people to be familiar with because there was such a
Speaker 1: strong female sensibility, and a couple of scripts were written
Speaker 1: by men. We had one young man for a while,
Speaker 1: but they weren't as consistent year to year as as
Speaker 1: our women were. At what point the ten staff too
Speaker 1: very tiny relative for television, considered quite small. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: at some point the show becomes this huge hit, And
Speaker 1: at what point in the process did they start to
Speaker 1: turn to you and say, well, now you're a producer
Speaker 1: now we're going to factor in your import. When I
Speaker 1: first met with Darren, he said to me, why don't
Speaker 1: you be a consulting producer on the show or consultant?
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, He said it would be
Speaker 1: good for you. You You could learn about television, You could
Speaker 1: learn about producing television. So I said, well, who would
Speaker 1: say no to an opportunity to learn? And so I
Speaker 1: was very devoted to that idea. And second season they
Speaker 1: said do you want to start producing? And I did,
Speaker 1: and I I said yes if they continued to let
Speaker 1: me learn, And that sort of the understanding was that
Speaker 1: I kind of laid out, was that I would only
Speaker 1: contribute if and when I thought I had something valuable
Speaker 1: to say. Really, it was an opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: now sit be more part of the conversation and learn
Speaker 1: about producing. And I just did and loved it, loved
Speaker 1: And one aspect of that that I comes to mind
Speaker 1: for me, is it in your career prior to this,
Speaker 1: number one on the call sheet is a guy and
Speaker 1: you're the girl. So Nick Cage approves you, and Bruce
Speaker 1: I was hired before Nick. What I mean, but for
Speaker 1: many times in your career, whether you're working with Tim
Speaker 1: and you're working with all these people you made movies,
Speaker 1: or you made a lot of movies. You're the girl
Speaker 1: and now you're number one of the call sheet and
Speaker 1: you get to decide who the men are that are
Speaker 1: coming to the door. How did that work with you?
Speaker 1: You know? I mean you have like kind of um
Speaker 1: tastes and you react in ways that you didn't even
Speaker 1: know you would. I would have, you know, feelings about
Speaker 1: certain names, and and Michael would have feelings and that was,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes hard because he would write it, so
Speaker 1: he imagined things, and so I couldn't argue with what
Speaker 1: what he saw in his head. My problem was that
Speaker 1: I knew what I was going to have to do
Speaker 1: on screen with them, and I think there's something very
Speaker 1: interesting about that which is hard to explain to people.
Speaker 1: But you and I can get into it now. So
Speaker 1: you know, when they've given you somebody to play opposite,
Speaker 1: and everybody wanted them but you because and what you know,
Speaker 1: I would allow it under dress when someone's holding me
Speaker 1: down and saying you have to trust me, you have
Speaker 1: to try me. I know you haven't seen this out
Speaker 1: of this person. I think he or she can do.
Speaker 1: Trump is perfect for this part of your boyfriend. So
Speaker 1: what I think it's hard to explain to these people,
Speaker 1: right the Senate that believes in their choice, is that
Speaker 1: you know what they won't bring, and you know what
Speaker 1: you will then have to do is tell the story
Speaker 1: for two people on camera. And I think what's really
Speaker 1: really dangerous about that is you end up projecting onto
Speaker 1: the other person what you wish they were bringing into
Speaker 1: the scene. And what I think happens is you become
Speaker 1: a bad actor. You overact. You try to create chemistry
Speaker 1: and romance and love, and you imbue the scene with everything,
Speaker 1: and you can't because when you feel it, even if
Speaker 1: you're not in love with this person. I've worked with
Speaker 1: countless actors who I'm not in love with them. I
Speaker 1: really mean it, but I love working with them and
Speaker 1: I can. I don't care what they look like, smell like,
Speaker 1: where they come from, who they are, how tall, how short,
Speaker 1: If they're smart and interesting and talented actors. I do not.
Speaker 1: Talent is the greatest ephrodisiac. It's But then this is
Speaker 1: the weird part, right, This is the fork in the road,
Speaker 1: is that I don't need to I don't even care
Speaker 1: if I don't want to have sex with them. I'm
Speaker 1: using you have to play with them, some romance. You
Speaker 1: just want to feel some friction, some kind of or
Speaker 1: some love, sword player love, some capturing of something. I
Speaker 1: did street Car Name Desire with Amy Madigan, and Amy
Speaker 1: Madigan's a real antiochally flinty cow girl. You know, this
Speaker 1: really kind of tough little girl. And I loved Amy
Speaker 1: every night. I was in love with her. And I've
Speaker 1: got to have that some feeling. It's just so wonderful
Speaker 1: to have that. And when you don't, it's it's a
Speaker 1: kind of hard work. What would you do? I would
Speaker 1: be you know, it would be very hard and earn
Speaker 1: your money that week. I guess, so, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know. I think it would be hard,
Speaker 1: and it would be a different kind of hard work,
Speaker 1: Like I would work so hard on that show. I
Speaker 1: worked hours. I would do a hundred and hundred and
Speaker 1: ten hour weeks. I didn't care this kind of hard
Speaker 1: work shows. It made me a bad actor because I
Speaker 1: would try to keep it alive and sort of yourself
Speaker 1: parties and I think it makes you over animated, surface
Speaker 1: e and fake and it's just awful and it would
Speaker 1: upset me and it would make me pouty. It's really
Speaker 1: bizarrely hard. My code word with him. I was doing
Speaker 1: the series. I'd say to them, I go, you decide
Speaker 1: if I didn't like the person. That's what I said.
Speaker 1: They say to me, we were thinking of so and so.
Speaker 1: I take a long pause and I go, well you decide,
Speaker 1: so you decide meant? No, you decide, you decide meant
Speaker 1: I don't like that idea. Now, so you're number one
Speaker 1: of the call sheet. Now you're producing the show. What
Speaker 1: do you decide if anything in terms of the text,
Speaker 1: because the show did get glorified and it also got
Speaker 1: some criticism for what you're saying about single women and sex.
Speaker 1: Did you think about that? I mean I thought about
Speaker 1: what I knew and heard about. I didn't read anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't really. We didn't talk about peripheral chatter. We
Speaker 1: just Michael and I had a kind of agreement, like
Speaker 1: a blackout. We just really The only things we ever
Speaker 1: spoke about, press wise was when we were first in
Speaker 1: Maureen Dowd's column and we thought, Wow, this show is
Speaker 1: familiar enough for her to talk to reference, for her
Speaker 1: to reference reference that this is, yeah, this is But
Speaker 1: what about the content of the scripts. Did you say
Speaker 1: to them, I don't want to say that about women
Speaker 1: that always say about sex. You know what I was
Speaker 1: most concerned about, and what I was super vigilant of
Speaker 1: out and a super gatekeeper, was the choice of language
Speaker 1: after the table read. I would say, and I don't
Speaker 1: mean just you know, salty language. I was real watch
Speaker 1: talk about that, because I thought, you know, she has
Speaker 1: an HBO. You could have gone blue. You could have
Speaker 1: and you know, it's really kind of easy, but you
Speaker 1: have to be kind of smaller than it's lazy. So
Speaker 1: and also Carrie was a writer. I wanted her to
Speaker 1: be thoughtful about the choice of words, but also I
Speaker 1: wanted her to be smart. And even though she was
Speaker 1: a mess, and even though she made mistakes and even
Speaker 1: though she showed poor judgment, that didn't mean she couldn't
Speaker 1: use interesting language when she was trying to talk about
Speaker 1: feelings and her own feelings and sexual politics and the
Speaker 1: um the mess that is her relationships romantically, or how
Speaker 1: she fell short in her friendships. I wanted her choice
Speaker 1: of words to be as complicated as she was, and
Speaker 1: sometimes she got and that used to really freaking upset me,
Speaker 1: and I would get very strident about it. I was
Speaker 1: a gatekeeper. I felt like I had this familym in
Speaker 1: my hands that someone said to me, your responsibility. And
Speaker 1: Sarah Jessica still feels responsible for the character she helped create.
Speaker 1: In two thousand thirteen, when a Sex in the City spinoff,
Speaker 1: The Carrie Diaries premiered, featuring a sixteen year old Carry,
Speaker 1: Parker admitted finding that odd. The show was canceled after
Speaker 1: two seasons. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. My guest today is Sarah Jessica Parker,
Speaker 1: who became a household name when she starred on HBO
Speaker 1: as a Sex in the City. Her character, advice columnist
Speaker 1: Carry Bradshaw, dated many different men over the run of
Speaker 1: the show, but it was her on again, off again
Speaker 1: relationship with Mr Big that fans could not get enough of.
Speaker 1: Have you got a smoke? I quit? Oh? We always
Speaker 1: used to share a cigarette together. We did a lot
Speaker 1: of things that were bad for me together. Chris Note
Speaker 1: played Mr Big and he was a central figure in
Speaker 1: the show from the very first episode. I knew Chris
Speaker 1: and uh so we did this table read, and I
Speaker 1: knew after the table read I thought, Wow, this could
Speaker 1: be good, This carry big thing could be really good.
Speaker 1: And my greatest concern was that I was going to
Speaker 1: appear like a twinkie, that he was so earthbound and
Speaker 1: so so masculine, so virile and um kind of truculent
Speaker 1: and force of nature that I was going to my
Speaker 1: voice would somehow go up, you know, two octaves higher,
Speaker 1: and um. But I loved the story. I said, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is good. The last you know, these last three
Speaker 1: four lines of the script were perfect. And um. But
Speaker 1: he but he is a so so special and we'll
Speaker 1: get back to the girls in a second, or the women,
Speaker 1: I should say, But since we got on to Chris,
Speaker 1: you know, the thing that surprised me most about Chris was, um,
Speaker 1: how I would never have predicted that we would have
Speaker 1: become that close, that he and I would have become
Speaker 1: so reliant upon one another, that it would be my
Speaker 1: job to take care of him on more than you know,
Speaker 1: four or five six dozen occasions, that I was really
Speaker 1: responsible for keeping him happy, that I could negotiate his
Speaker 1: worst moments and and bring him out of them. That
Speaker 1: that was that he was my charge in some way.
Speaker 1: I love a great fellow actor and always and wouldn't
Speaker 1: have wanted to see anybody else do it. Play it, um,
Speaker 1: and all these people we meet and you can have
Speaker 1: love with them, and Tony Hopkins I did a movie
Speaker 1: with them. I mean, I can't tell you, like every
Speaker 1: day I was around and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I want to enjoy every minute this. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: I won't be doing this forever, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because you just can't maintain those relationships. It's such
Speaker 1: a lesson to learn when you're first starting out and
Speaker 1: you're on a movie set and it's all done and
Speaker 1: everybody goes home, and you think, these are the people
Speaker 1: I'm going to know for the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: and you know, write long letters and longhand and and
Speaker 1: page after page of you know, the documentation of your day.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna get a house together on a lake
Speaker 1: friendships and yeah, the lake house would be nice and um.
Speaker 1: But the truth is someone said, if you leave and
Speaker 1: you stay in touch with one person from a job,
Speaker 1: that's like a miracle. You know, people just go on
Speaker 1: and um. So these relationships are are funny and very unusual,
Speaker 1: and therefore I think more special because they are this
Speaker 1: kind of um finite little and how we to pick
Speaker 1: up where we left off. I'd be in an award
Speaker 1: show and I'd see someone go, oh, my god, Cynthia.
Speaker 1: You hug Cynthia, Kiss Cynthia. My daughter would say, when
Speaker 1: was the last time you saw I go, I don't know,
Speaker 1: three years ago. You got to just pick up right
Speaker 1: where you left on the gypsy kind of transient thing.
Speaker 1: I call them the girls because I once joke with
Speaker 1: Christen that the four of you were like the Beatles. Actually,
Speaker 1: any quartet I compared to the Beatles. You all had
Speaker 1: distinct personalities and distinct idiosyncrasies, and even the imperfections were
Speaker 1: kind of perfect too, because we were all really different
Speaker 1: and and we had to figure it out and create
Speaker 1: friendships on screen, you know, kind of prematurely before it
Speaker 1: meant anything in our real lives. You know how you
Speaker 1: kind of go backwards. You know, there's a whole history
Speaker 1: that brought these women together, and we eventually caught up
Speaker 1: with our characters. Basically, Um, we were together for ten
Speaker 1: eleven years telling these stories, and you know, by the end,
Speaker 1: the kind of feelings that we had for one another,
Speaker 1: We're like, what we were doing on screen. It was
Speaker 1: very weird and it took a long time to figure
Speaker 1: out who we are with one another. But I remember
Speaker 1: sitting in Morocco for the last movie. We all had trailers,
Speaker 1: but we preferred to share a hotel room, and I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is um this is the best it could be.
Speaker 1: Kim might be lying down for a minute, or Cynthia's
Speaker 1: lying down and I'm reading a book or eating some
Speaker 1: some eating something more likely than not, and we're all
Speaker 1: just in a room, completely comfortable, the very thing you
Speaker 1: hope for in romance. You're like, I just want to
Speaker 1: get to that time with this fellow where I can
Speaker 1: eat in front of him, or where I can just
Speaker 1: read a book and I don't I'm not worried about
Speaker 1: entertaining him or And that's where we were as women
Speaker 1: and friends and fellow actors. And a lot had been
Speaker 1: written that was untrue and it has been painful for
Speaker 1: all of us, and we've been all through it. We
Speaker 1: had traveled to this other side together and without trying
Speaker 1: that hard, because you can't really try that hard in
Speaker 1: real relations, like you can't focus it that way, you
Speaker 1: can't be that result oriented because they're people, they're human.
Speaker 1: You know, what are you gonna do? You can't force it.
Speaker 1: But I really thought at that moment, Wow, like if
Speaker 1: this is it, this is the best, this is and
Speaker 1: honest and when you get that honest wave, I mean
Speaker 1: it's I always tell people it's like that moment in
Speaker 1: West Side Story when he says to her at the dance,
Speaker 1: he says, you're not lying, are you? And she said,
Speaker 1: I have not yet learned to lie about such things.
Speaker 1: And it has to be those people. I have a
Speaker 1: very strange metaphysical feeling about those. Like McCartney said to
Speaker 1: me about the Beatles, he said, everyone was pressuring them
Speaker 1: to hire the guy that was the best drummer in London.
Speaker 1: And the guy came and played a few tracks for them,
Speaker 1: and they didn't really like him very much. And Ringo
Speaker 1: Star was off fulfillming other commitments he had to other
Speaker 1: bands and he was associated with, and he came back
Speaker 1: to record with them, and the alsaid, it's got to
Speaker 1: be him or we're not doing it anymore. It has
Speaker 1: to be us four now for you. Well, the fifth
Speaker 1: Beatle for you guys, was the designer who was um, well,
Speaker 1: there was a toss up, was it was it the
Speaker 1: city of New York or was it Pat Field? Well,
Speaker 1: the clothes were such a huge Yeah, the clothes were
Speaker 1: Was that presented to you up front that she was
Speaker 1: going to become this style master. Actually we brought her
Speaker 1: in after the pilot because she had designed um She
Speaker 1: had designed Miami Rapsody, a movie I shot with David
Speaker 1: Frankel that he wrote and directed in Miami. We knew
Speaker 1: we were going to um rehire the costume designer, and
Speaker 1: he said Pat Field, and I was like, of course,
Speaker 1: it's Pat Field, of course. And I had loved working
Speaker 1: with her, like fallen in she had that Remember when
Speaker 1: I went to n y U. She had a very
Speaker 1: very idiosyncratic boutique on eighth and eighth Street which was
Speaker 1: still open, and I did had many meetings with her there.
Speaker 1: And only later, well into this life of the series
Speaker 1: or even the movie, did did she have to leave that?
Speaker 1: It was the landlord worked her out after all those years,
Speaker 1: I think thirty some years. There was she with you
Speaker 1: all the seasons of the show, all the seasons and
Speaker 1: the movies. And at what point does it come to you?
Speaker 1: Do you become We're really kind of getting further and
Speaker 1: further untethered from the mother ship here of fashion, because
Speaker 1: obviously wore a lot of very stylized clothing. Well she
Speaker 1: she would have always told the story the same way,
Speaker 1: no matter what, I think, the only difference being that
Speaker 1: in the very beginning, we couldn't get our hands on anything.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to give us a thing, nobody, And we
Speaker 1: had a teeny teeny teeny we talk about anemic. We
Speaker 1: had a tiny, tiny budget for the whole per episode.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I wore so many thrift clothes
Speaker 1: from thrift stops, and that was the only way to fulfill,
Speaker 1: you know, something unique. So so she was very clever.
Speaker 1: Thrift stores by necessity, thrift stores by necessity. We went
Speaker 1: to some rental houses in Miami, in New York, she
Speaker 1: had apartment in Miami, she had resources in Miami, and
Speaker 1: frankly all over and we just pulled and pulled and pulled.
Speaker 1: And it was about I think towards the end of
Speaker 1: the second or even the beginning of third season, I
Speaker 1: can't remember which. Someone will correct me that it was
Speaker 1: Fandy that loaned us a baguette and that was like
Speaker 1: the gateway. That was, you know, the floodwaters. Everything shifted.
Speaker 1: We were able to get our hands on pieces that
Speaker 1: could help us tell the story maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: more clearly. And so the woman who started the show
Speaker 1: that had a that wore a thrift store closed because
Speaker 1: you had a thrift store budget for the show. As
Speaker 1: soon as Sex in the City really starts to conquetize
Speaker 1: in the culture and Maureene Downlalls, do you have people
Speaker 1: coming to you going, we're gonna do this and this
Speaker 1: and this and this. How are we going to monetize
Speaker 1: or did all of it come to you slowly? I
Speaker 1: think the world was really different than so all of
Speaker 1: that didn't really exist in the same way. I wanted
Speaker 1: to do a fragrance, and that was that. That was mine.
Speaker 1: I long dreamed of doing a fragrance for lots of reasons.
Speaker 1: I won't barro your listeners with so I actually eventually
Speaker 1: had the courage to to say this to somebody. But
Speaker 1: this was in the days before actors were doing it.
Speaker 1: There was one. There was the great Elizabeth Taylor signature
Speaker 1: fragrance white Diamonds, and really wasn't And Jennifer Lopez had
Speaker 1: very been really smart about business and fragrance business in particular,
Speaker 1: but all of that stuff, anything that came to me
Speaker 1: because of the show. I was super vigilant about not
Speaker 1: doing what was easy just because it was lucrative. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's always a great challenge. What is the real connection
Speaker 1: to it? And I would have had them name a
Speaker 1: doughnut after me, a Duncan Donuts if they would have
Speaker 1: written me a seven figure I'm not like you. You
Speaker 1: have a lot of integrity and sex, and that carry
Speaker 1: Bradshaw is this iconic figure me. I would have let
Speaker 1: them name like a tie with whales on it after
Speaker 1: me at Brooks Brothers. Well, that would have been actually
Speaker 1: really cute. Okay, Okay, that's a word for it. The
Speaker 1: connection that isn't so ridiculous. Actually, I was ready to
Speaker 1: cash in. I was ready, let's let's have a Jack Donneghee.
Speaker 1: I was a right okay, But but you have to
Speaker 1: remember forty Rock came after third. But the time thirty
Speaker 1: Rock was on the air, and the time you're talking
Speaker 1: about people presenting you with crazy opportunities, the world had shifted.
Speaker 1: When Garnier came to me Tina's now that spokes first
Speaker 1: and four and said to me, we want you to
Speaker 1: do hair care commercials. I was like and and actually,
Speaker 1: this actor who I adored and admired and thought like
Speaker 1: hung the Moon and I will not say his name,
Speaker 1: Sad just said to me, well, you know, you're being
Speaker 1: really smart. At least you're not doing hair care commercials.
Speaker 1: And then they came to me with this crazy offer
Speaker 1: and I said no immediately no, because this actor I
Speaker 1: admired said to me, well, at least you're not well
Speaker 1: version an American version of Colin Firth. Let's put it
Speaker 1: that way. And then I said to Kenny Lonergan, who's
Speaker 1: my husband's best friend, I said, you know this an
Speaker 1: ex actor said no, said are you idiots? Are you?
Speaker 1: And I was like, is it too late to collect?
Speaker 1: I not, wasn't practiced that. Do you actually pick up
Speaker 1: the phone and say I've been thinking? So I called
Speaker 1: Richard love It and I said, like, I've made this.
Speaker 1: I think this grave error and he said, oh it
Speaker 1: was interesting. Is it interesting how you go from talking
Speaker 1: people out of hiring you to talking them back into
Speaker 1: high You come full circle? Sarah Jessica Parker fill circle.
Speaker 1: Is you calling up the Fructis people saying I fructiased
Speaker 1: up here? Yeah? Exactly. Anyway, they were nice and um
Speaker 1: forgiving and in rest is history. But I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about um. Is it kind of not ruined?
Speaker 1: But does it affect you? Does it? Because I think
Speaker 1: it does? It can't? Does it affect you in terms
Speaker 1: of um acting and actions? To be married to? Who
Speaker 1: you're married to, who's so talented and so polished and
Speaker 1: so smart and so elegant? And do you sit there
Speaker 1: sometimes and go I always have an image of you,
Speaker 1: like lying in there with your husband. I have these
Speaker 1: very romantic Woody Allen movie images. You're in bed and
Speaker 1: you have a specially squeezed great to juice in the
Speaker 1: times who squeezed it? And your son, of course, his
Speaker 1: parents are stars with the paper ironed, give me the
Speaker 1: newspapers by a butler, of course, by a butler named
Speaker 1: James Wilkie, James, that juice isn't gonna walk over here
Speaker 1: by itself, son, And you're in bed, and the sun
Speaker 1: brings you the trail to keep stock trotting, as they say,
Speaker 1: and he brings you the juice. And you're sitting there
Speaker 1: and your husband and you were just giving each other
Speaker 1: notes about scripts, and don't you don't want to work
Speaker 1: with him? Who do they want you to work with? No? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you really can. I mean, I'm so flatter, do you you?
Speaker 1: I actually picture that in other people's lives, and perhaps
Speaker 1: even yours, but including yours, would be a physical My
Speaker 1: wife was a yoga instructor. I'm sorry. Yeah, um no,
Speaker 1: I mean we don't have that kind of leisure time
Speaker 1: and no, none of that has ever happened, although I
Speaker 1: will say there was a time before we had children.
Speaker 1: Remember that where we would sleep? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: remember not being in bed with us? But do you
Speaker 1: remember that time before you had children where you were
Speaker 1: I'm trying to envision being in bed with you? Go
Speaker 1: go go. You woke up like eleven, You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: crack of twelve eleven and um. Then you would get
Speaker 1: the paper and you would sit with someone you liked
Speaker 1: or loved hopefully and you would read and you talk
Speaker 1: about coffee and put another log on the fire, go
Speaker 1: to cinema the village and watch a movie. Yeah, go
Speaker 1: to you film forum, or go to Chinatown on Sunday's. Um,
Speaker 1: you know all of that. I'm so glad we did that, though,
Speaker 1: you know, as much as I'd think, wow, that was
Speaker 1: sometimes I miss it a lot. At least you did it.
Speaker 1: You did it. One thing I always never ceased to
Speaker 1: amaze me was that in my single days, when I
Speaker 1: was married, got divorced, I was single for several years,
Speaker 1: and whenever I would date women, regardless of it, they
Speaker 1: had law degrees, they worked in biotech, whatever they were doing,
Speaker 1: we would talk about their television viewing and they would say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't watch television. I don't really have time for television.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you can disconnecting my cable. Well,
Speaker 1: I watched sex in the cinema. That story telling, that's
Speaker 1: the writing, that's the stories we got to tell. We
Speaker 1: were just the repository. We were the lucky enough you
Speaker 1: never want to do a series again? Um, I used
Speaker 1: to say never. Now I think would they let me
Speaker 1: do six or eight episodes? Then I could do it.
Speaker 1: It's just hard with the kids right now in school
Speaker 1: and we need to be there for the kids. I
Speaker 1: have two five year olds and a twelve year old,
Speaker 1: And um, if I could do it the way I
Speaker 1: like to do things, which is splitting the atoms the
Speaker 1: bitter ender and still be a good parent and wife, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I would. You know, it's just about timing
Speaker 1: and choices now that I have kids, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: But it's you know, Extrasberg says in the Girlfriend, this
Speaker 1: is the life that we've chosen. Yeah, it's a dream, really,
Speaker 1: Sarah Jessica Parker is living her dream again. She said
Speaker 1: she was on the beach with her family just the
Speaker 1: day before. The tide was way out. You know, so
Speaker 1: the if you're a small child, there's just no sense
Speaker 1: of danger and the ocean is no longer this formidable,
Speaker 1: awful thing. But your friend and we were on the
Speaker 1: beach building what we call drippy castles. The feeling was
Speaker 1: close to those Sunday mornings lazing in bed over coffee,
Speaker 1: but the circumstances were very different. Sarah Jessica seemed to
Speaker 1: think it was a consequence of getting older. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: finally time for another spinoff, one about an older wiser,
Speaker 1: Carrie Bradshaw, who navigates the complexities of motherhood than marriage.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the
Speaker 1: thing