If you’re a fan of Sarah Jessica Parker, her profile in the New Yorker is a must-read. If you’re like me and you find her exhausting, please praise me for getting through this damn thing. It’s so long!!! Jesus H., she’s not that interesting and there are only so many stories we can read about SJP being polite to tourists. SJP is obviously promoting the new season of And Just Like That, the “spinoff” of Sex and the City. The New Yorker devoted 10,000 words to this and they never really answered the question of “why revisit these characters in this way?” I mean, there is one answer: playing Carrie Bradshaw is SJP’s most successful project, and she wants to keep riding that, but she dresses it up as fan-service. Some highlights from this New Yorker piece.
The Bitter Ender: Parker calls herself a “bitter ender.” Performance, in her approach, requires the discipline to stick with it. Even trying on designer clothes can be an act of endurance. She told me she’d welcome the chance to one day lean into her fascination with regimentation and play, against type, the role of a nun.
She avoids the discourse over AJLT: “No one sends me press clippings. I don’t get reviews, watch reviews, read reviews.” She continues to play Carrie because, as she put it, she finds the material “unmistakably rich,” but also out of what seems to be a peculiar sense of responsibility. When the reboot was about to début, in the midst of the pandemic, she described it as a kind of palliative: “The world of Carrie and her friends has always been about coming home, and I felt like we needed that right now,” she told Vogue.
Her relationship with Robert Downey Jr in her 20s: “People around him would be dismissive of me, but I had given him stability and tried to create a steady heartbeat that allowed him to show up on time. That made me angry and embarrassed me.”
Dating John Kennedy Jr: In the summer of 1991, Parker met John F. Kennedy, Jr., at the theatre. He asked her out, and they dated for a few months. Paparazzi trailed them everywhere. In a Times profile of Parker not long afterward, she sounded shell-shocked. “I never had any idea what real fame was,” she said, adding, “When I die, they are going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, Sarah once dated John Kennedy.’ ”
The dirty girl talk on SATC: “That just was not how I conducted conversations,” she said. (She did, for a time, smoke cigarettes.) She’d never done nudity professionally, and she told Star that she didn’t intend to. Even now, she sounds somewhat confounded by Carrie’s life style. “I could never do any of that stuff in my life. It would be immoral. It would be unprincipled. An affair, husbands, kissing, buying, drinking—whims, whims, whims!”
The Kim Cattrall catfight: When “And Just Like That” premièred, some fans were outraged that Samantha had been written out. Cattrall claimed in an interview that she’d learned about the new show on social media, “like everyone else.” Parker told me, “We felt like it had been made clear by her that this was not a character she wanted to revisit.” In Season 1, Samantha is estranged from the other friends. Her text messages from London are infrequent and terse. But in May Variety leaked the news that Cattrall would be returning in the Season 2 finale, for a phone-conversation scene that she’d filmed “without seeing or speaking with” her co-stars. The tabloids scoured the story for evidence of acrimony. As in the past, Parker has practiced a tight-lipped diplomacy. “It’s the weirdest thing, to be told we’re in a catfight,” she said to me. “I would never speak poorly about Kim. I just wouldn’t.” Parker said that King had “begged” her not to discuss the Cattrall cameo, but she did admit, “I am in the scene.”
“I am in the scene” – meaning that Cattrall filmed her cameo separately, completely away from SJP and everyone else, and they will have Samantha talking on the phone to Carrie. There’s no way in hell Cattrall would have agreed to do a scene in the same room with Sarah Jessica at this point. As for “I would never speak poorly about Kim. I just wouldn’t.” Please. She literally HAS sh-ttalked Cattrall constantly for years, she just hides behind sources or other people (like Andy Cohen) to do her dirty work. I was also surprised that she spoke sharply about her relationship with Robert Downey Jr – usually she avoids discussing him entirely, but that was her biggest relationship before Matthew Broderick.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Backgrid.
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- New York City, NY – Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes, Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, Kristin Davis as Charlotte York in “And Just Like That…,” the 10-part revival of (and sequel to) “Sex and the City.” The girls followed strict COVID-19 guidelines staying masked up in between sets. Pictured: Kristin Davis BACKGRID USA 13 JULY 2021 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Actress Sarah Jessica Parker on the set of the HBOMax Sex And The City reboot series ‘And Just Like That’ in New York City. Pictured: Sarah Jessica Parker BACKGRID USA 14 JULY 2021 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York City, NY – Actress Sarah Jessica Parker on the set of “And Just Like That” in New York City Pictured: Sarah Jessica Parker BACKGRID USA 26 JANUARY 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Sarah Jessica Parker, John Corbett, David Eigenberg, and Niall Cunningham, film a scene on the Coney Island Boardwalk for ‘And Just Like That’. Pictured: Sarah Jessica Parker, John Corbett BACKGRID USA 21 FEBRUARY 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: T.JACKSON / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Filming of ‘And Just Like That…’ in New York City Featuring: Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker Where: New York, New York, United States When: 02 Feb 2023 Credit: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages
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- Filming of ‘And Just Like That…’ in New York City. Featuring: Sarah Jessica Parker Where: New York, New York, United States When: 02 Feb 2023 Credit: ROGER WONG/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images
It’s interesting for someone who proclaims to loathe fame and all the notoriety it brings to then date the most famous men in the world. One after the other. I’m not shaming her for dating- I just think it’s interesting that she always chose extremely famous men.
She started acting on Broadway when she was 11 and was the Broadway star of Annie at 14. She’s likely only met famous men.
I have watched SJP for ages. My how her career has evolved since Square Pegs. She has made professional and personal decisions that I don’t agree with. I will admit that I am more of a Kim Cattrall fan. It’s a blessing that Cattrall was established enough to establish boundaries and dictate terms of her AJLT appearance.
She doesn’t really seem to have dated around much by Hollywood standards though. She’s been married to Matthew Broderick for a long time.
I wouldn’t realistically expect her to turn down a date with JFK Jr. I don’t think any actress (or non-famous woman) within his age range ever did.
When she was younger, she was very much known as an up and coming young actress with sidekick roles and only very, very famous boyfriends.
SJP is an actress—of course she wants attention—but the higher up the ladder you go, typically, the more you want that attention to be only on your own terms. Sex and the City was supposed to be all hers, and it was a massively successful project, but SJP has always been jealous of and, most importantly, threatened by Kim Cattrall’s success as Samantha. She is not the first star to feel this way, but she is really, really 1) unable to own her own issues and 2) defensive as all hell. RDJ? I can only imagine that somewhere in the furthest reaches of the internet, some random suggested she somehow enabled RDJ’s addiction. ‘Bitter end’ is exactly right, she seems unable to let anything go.
I recall reading a piece where Kim Cattrall explained that SJP talked the other two actresses into having the production rent a whole villa for them, unbeknownst to her. It resulted in Kim Cattrall being isolated at the hotel during the entire shoot of the first movie.
That was apparently the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Back then, I felt distraught by Sarah J Parker’s self-centeredness and history of petty, vexatious scheming towards Kim Cattrall.
SJP’S mean girl persona has stayed with me so to this day, I find the woman’s age inappropriate attention seeking odious. She is unsufferable and unforgivable.
She comes across as very self-righteous and dull. The only interesting things about her are the men she dated briefly 30-40 years ago.
Uh, SJP’s version of SJP seems different from the known version? I don’t know if it’s true, but there was a hit song “Jessie” that was supposedly (never verified) based on her. Never considered her a stabilizing disciplinarian type.
https://www.smoothradio.com/news/music/joshua-kadison-jessie-lyrics-meaning/
This show just keeps getting worse and is clearly a vehicle for her ego. I am hate watching it and last week’s ep was so offensive I don’t know how this keeps getting made. Objectifying a teenage boy was the latest warped attempt at humor. Just go away already.
Yep, look up what she said about The Carrie Diaries being a test of her generosity. Candace Bushnell retorted to get her to calm down. LOL. She’s only ever been really successful with the Carrie role and it must just kill her to have to face the fact that people tuned in for Sam and Kim and not her.
SJP seems like the type to never let anything go, always has to have the last word, and her experience is the only one that matters.
It would have been so easy to make a statement early on wishing KC well in her future endeavours and say the SATC ladies raise a glass to Samantha.
Yep, look up what she said about The Carrie Diaries and what Candace Bushnell said in response.
She’s kind of sad to watch and a good learning experience about how to be graceful when someone outshines you at work. Realise it’s about the team and the company and not you and be more humble and generous towards your colleagues. You bring something to the table too, but be gracious about other peoples’ contributions and share the pie fairly.
I feel for her on the Robert Downey stuff- being the sane person in a relationship with a junkie is exhausting, and often fruitless. And yeah, his junkie enablers don’t really like you. That is a lot to take on as a young woman.
Though- it bugs me that she clings to this- i never said a bad word- about Ms. Cattrell- as is stated by our author- she let’s that nasty b andy cohen do her dirty work. That is not the same thing as rising above it. Letting friends do your dirty work- that is what the windsors do. It is a joke.
One thing I’ve learned is that when you see conflicting parties and one is making a lot of noise and the other is sitting quietly looking innocent, look for the machinations behind the scenes. Often (not always) the quiet one is a master manipulator and the noisy one is simply reacting to unseen provocation with frustration.
Apologies l may of mentioned this before, but years ago l.read an article in the Irish Independent about an journalist who visited the set of SATC, one of the final esp He was surprised that Kim.was excluded from lunches, breaks even excluded from staying with he other ladies.on set. I think.SJP .may have spoken about this saying that Kim.had just got married or something, but Sarah was also married !! I find it also .strange that no one picked up the phone when Kim had issues with the third movie either. I mean if you had a worked with a colleague for over 12 years wouldn’t you ?. I think that behaviour speaks for itself, shame on them.
Honestly SJP sounds like a master manipulator and gaslighter. But one who never breaks character, always smiling and speaking in friendly tones while arranging for you to be hit in the head with brick. I had a boss like this.
Your description up there gave me chills – I had a boss like this too.
I am most baffled by how none of the other women get called out. Maybe Kim has addressed this already but unless SJP was always arranging things so Kim was left out and she explained it away to the others who only saw/heard one side then it seems like they were all party to this mean-girling. 😑
SJP is an EP of the show and the other two don’t have much in the way of careers beyond the SATC franchise (compared to KC who has led at least a couple of shows since waking away from the 3rd movie). Sucking up to the boss is just smart business for them.
A lot of us if not all of us have all met or worked with someone like that at work! They’re focused on getting everyone on their side as a “friend” instead of focusing more on the work and they’re super political.
I can just see SJP getting the other two (who should have banded with Kim to create a mini-union and bargained for equal pay by season two) into her little girlfriend circle (fake) so she could consolidate her power.
SJP might not have seen it that way but consciously or unconsciously that’s how these borderline sociopaths work. They’re by nature political because they’re insecure and often less competent than others (Kim is by far more talented and charismatic).
I just really love Kim Catrall. SjP is fine. Shrug.
I suspect SJP is annoying behind the scenes, but I think Cynthia Nixon has overtaken her in terms of creating an irritating character on the show.
I just hated watched the last episodes. It’s too bad they just couldn’t just leave SATC as the time capsule it is and let it go. (It also could have ended a few seasons sooner.) It seems like they’re really straining to address the critiques that the show lacked diversity. The attempt to do that is so clumsy and awkward, while continuing to regard Carrie as some higher level being, it’s humiliating to the OG actors and new virtue hires.
You can contrast that to Catrall’s new series Glamour. It’s not King Lear. It’s a confection, but it seems to have mixed racial, sexual and generational diversity in such a relaxed way. It doesn’t feel forced to be inclusive. It’s somewhere else all together they’re all human.
They didn’t treat the Samantha character with dignity. Per the show, Samantha (as her publicist) treated Carrie “like an ATM” and ran away to London after Carrie fired her. Samantha was an incredibly successful PR executive since the beginning of the show, so it’s inconceivable that Carrie was her biggest client. There’s also nothing in her past behavior to indicate that she’d treat her friend that way.
Lawd. She is so messy. Very Kate Middleton-like.
She gives me the icks as the kids would say. And yes, of course she had her friends do her dirty work for years.
Frankly I would like her better if she owned who she thinks she is.
This is total armchair therapy so my apologies to the real shrinks out there.
My theory is that she has the need to present herself as sweet and gracious, while still fighting the world, which has loaded the deck against her. In her mind, she is still a victim since other people were given things years ago- better looks and better connections – she never got. So, I think she sees herself as a scrappy victim fighting to even out the playing field, not an actual bully.
I think your assessment is spot on. She grew up very poor from what I remember. I am here for psychoanalyzing people I don’t know!
I find her exhausting too. She’s such a passive aggressive gaslighter. I would never talk badly about Kim. I just dehumanize and humiliate her by giving her character the absolute worst storylines where Samatha is a oversexed borderline pedophile and then sh*t talk her when she declines the humiliation. She’s exasperating.
She sounds like someone trying to sound smart. And everything that’s come out over the past few years just shows how much she mean girled Kim. I think it’s still passive aggressive for her to discuss nudity so much knowing they made Kim do so many uncomfortable scenes. Like, you’re wholier than though but it’s okay for you to bully someone else into it?
Spot on Candy! Exactly. You nailed it.
While SATC was, at the time, groundbreaking for many reasons, it hasn’t aged well .
Samantha was so unapologetic, true to herself sex positive, in charge of her life etc.etc. that still today can be considered modern. And Kim Cattrall gave amazing performances. I will be watching this mess only for Samantha, even if I feel they are going to kill her, but whatever.
The last time I watched Sarah Jessica Parker was in Square Pegs where her homeliness served her well.
“Never speak poorly” what a load of bs.
SJP was ExProducer in addition to actor in SaTC.
She made $millions on that show.
Did she share any of the DVD sales $$ or insist that the other 3 main characters get large pay raises? Not that I’ve ever heard.
I dislike SJP bc of all the stuff that we’ve learned about BTS on SaTC.
And both the movies were garbage, AJLT is a cash grab. Period.
SJP refused to do nude scenes in SaTC, while KC had required nudes scenes constantly.
Double standard much, SJP?
sure you wouldnt, SJP!
#teamkimcattrallforever
“She literally HAS sh-ttalked Cattrall constantly for years, she just hides behind sources or other people (like Andy Cohen) to do her dirty work. ”
Exactly!!!! And her PR team to do leaks to slam Kim! This woman is so fake.
I read that RJD, in a RJD interview, in recent years went over to her NYC house (one of them anyway) and they sat down and had a discussion about her being a really important person in his life, to resolve things. I think the main thing was he was on the edge with drugs and she really helped him but in the end she just couldn’t take his drug dependency and wanted him to clean himself up – which he wouldn’t do until much later.
I never particularly cared much for SJP until I watched her on Comedians in Cars Having Coffee. She was such a thoughtful and interesting guest, really made the interview about the people in her life, never herself. She was really great.
Everyone’s complex and not one dimensional. SJP could be a thoughtful and kind person much of the time but with Kim it’s clear she was way out of line and a bully. She ruined her own legacy if she was ever on course to have one.
All she had to do was step back, realise it could have been a win-win thing, and acknowledge Kim’s contribution helped make the show a hit.
Instead she went tunnel-visioned and was obsessed with proving herself to be the star, when the audience feedback contradicted that.
“Instead she went tunnel-visioned and was obsessed with proving herself to be the star, when the audience feedback contradicted that.”
The worst part is that it shouldn’t have even been that big of an ego hit to just acknowledge that Kim was contributing a lot to the success of the show. This show is an ensemble cast. Samantha was my favorite, and that is true of many, but I don’t think any of them were the true “star”. The ensemble worked. It isn’t like if SJP acknowledged how much fans loved Samantha, they would suddenly make it “Samantha in the City” and give her all the screen time. SJP would still be in a position of power. Admitting that people loved Samantha wouldn’t change that.
I mean, maybe if everyone involved admitted that fans loving Sam was a good thing…Sam might have been given better storylines later and Kim might have stayed on. A win/win. Instead SJP was a big baby and brought all this ugliness on herself while acting like an innocent.
Agree with you there, Turtledove. It shouldn’t have been a big deal and it was the chemistry between the characters / ensemble cast as well as their individual contributions, with Sam being a standout, that made it work.
I don’t believe her claim that she doesn’t read reviews. I remember when she called up Tom & Lorenzo on the telephone because they said something mildly negative about her outfit when she was trying to sell her shoe line. They talked about it on their website and in their podcast.
It was interesting to read the part about Robert Downey Junior. He was a mess back when they were together, so I do feel for her when she talks about being pegged as the one who “made him show up on time.”
Why is Carrie wearing a bathrobe in that one picture with Miranda? Or a coat made out of a vintage blanket? I’m all for the latter idea, actually, but not with that particular blanket. She looks like a giant swaddled infant.
RDJ had given an interview years ago where he basically confirmed what SJP said in this interview.
“I was so selfish,” he admits. “I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn’t jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is. She provided me a home and understanding. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn’t get my act together.”
Being in love with an addict who isn’t ready to get help is a hard, impossible thing. I’m glad they both landed where they should be, seemingly happy and stable after their break up
As far as the KC stuff….she was CarolE Middleton with her sources and mouthpieces before CarolE Middleton was.
Hollywood is filled with shows where the ‘star’ was overshadowed by another cast member. Family Ties is famous for this. It was supposed to be a showcase for the mom, Meredith Baxter (then Birney) but Michael J Fox exploded as an international star during that show…and the focus shifted. Everyone dealt with it.
It seems like if you have a breakout star you would thank god for your luck and give them their due.
I totally support Kim for standing up for a larger share of credit/salary once it was clear that she was pulling more than 25% of the load.
Seriously, given how hard it is to have a successful show, why not count your blessings if a cast member makes it a huge hit? If it doesn’t turn said member into a jerk, you are doubly lucky.
Agree with you both. Hit the nails on the heads! Didn’t know that about Michael J Fox and Family Ties; very interesting.
SJP couldn’t make that shift in perspective and let up a little but was obsessed with defending what she thought was her turf.