Sarah Jessica Parker gets real about fashion, aging and SATC legacy
Sarah Jessica Parker isn’t really keen on sharing her feelings about the “evolution” of the fashion choices of her character, Carrie Bradshaw, from Sex and the City (SATC) to now And Just Like That (AJLT).
The 58-year-old Hollywood star also finds it “peculiar” to be repeatedly queried about aging. And even though SATC is celebrating its 25th year this 2023, she has stayed away from discussions on its legacy. And it looks like she will continue to do so — or at least, while their characters are still very much around via AJLT.
These were just some of the refreshingly candid soundbites the press got during the virtual roundtable chat with the lead star and executive producer of HBO’s And Just Like That, the streaming reboot of her late-’90s cult show SATC.
When we talked to Sarah Jessica ahead of Season 2’s official premiere last Thursday, as expected, some of the questions revolved around fashion — specifically, her character’s fashion evolution in the course of 25 years.
“I think the evolution is kind of apparent, given our last season. It’s all there in front of everybody’s eyes,” Sarah Jessica responded.
“So, what I don’t love doing is kind of analyzing too much and sharing my feelings about evolution and story and emotion because I feel like it kind of dictates to the audience a little bit? I’ll simply say that, like most people, like a lot of people I know, like myself, your life changes in certain ways.”
She continued, “You adapt. You maybe spend more time running around on subways than in cabs and so that changes perhaps footwear. Or maybe, you have to carry an umbrella more than you used to, or maybe you’re working from home and so your job doesn’t require you to be presentational in ways expected for conventional office space.
“Or maybe, you’re used to wearing more comfortable clothes during COVID. So, you’re having a hard time getting out of sweatpants. I mean, it’s kind of those things.”
She acknowledged that Carrie has a “long and wonderful” relationship with fashion, but how much she has changed would have to be answered on the show.
“(Carrie has) always been interested, curious, and had a fevered relationship with shoes. I don’t think those things change,” she said.
“You know, she was married for a lot of years. How is she now being single? What does that mean about the way she chooses to dress and with whom and when? I think those are things that she’ll have to answer in real time on the show.
“I don’t want to tell you now because those might be considerations that you’ll experience as an audience.”
When a follow-up question was made by a journalist about her favorite outfit, she begged off from naming favorites.
“I’ve worn thousands of outfits. I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite shoe, a favorite meal, a favorite book, a favorite child. I just can’t and it’s not interesting. Like who cares what my favorite outfit is?”
Sarah Jessica said she relished everything she wore on the series. “I’ve loved the hits and I’ve loved the misses. And we’ve been right and we’ve been wrong. And it’s been a thrill. Like all of it. One minute, I have one favorite and then, I’ll see something else, I’m like, well, that’s my favorite. So it just is… like it’s too much.”
Coping with grief
What Sarah Jessica’s willing to share is that in Season 2, audiences get to see how the recently widowed Carrie handles grief, which may or may not sit well with everyone.
“I think grief is very different for everybody. You know, my father just passed. My mother and father were married for 56 years and it was unexpected and awful. So grief for my mother is very different from grief for Carrie Bradshaw or grief for my friend who just lost her husband,” Sarah Jessica said.
“I think Carrie wanted very much to be noble about her grief and not burden others. She kind of gave herself a period in which to sort it out and move on because it seemed unsightly to carry on.
“But it’s not an emotion you can control. So, I think, certainly the last season was an attempt at resurfacing. But how genuine and authentic the experience cannot be when you’ve lost somebody that you really loved publicly for many, many years.”
She agreed with an observation by a journalist that AJLT Season 2 was about Carrie trying to rediscover and reclaim her old self.
“This season feels familiar. As we were shooting it, I thought, oh, you know, this is like the old days in a way. This is a woman who is in a city who is in pursuit of discovery, romance, profession, friendships,” she said.
“It’s a liberty that she hasn’t had because she was in a relationship (marriage) that she directed attention towards. I think you’re right. I think it’s a very different way of being in the city that I felt we haven’t seen in a long time with Carrie.”
‘Just living my life’
And Just Like That follows Carrie and her friends Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), plus new additions to their circle, navigate life, love, loss and lifelong friendship in their 50s.
A question about aging and the passing of time was inevitably raised. Sarah Jessica found it “weird” to be constantly asked about it.
“It’s such a phenomenon to be constantly asked about aging. It’s so peculiar to me because I just don’t see it with men. It’s so weird. Like I’m just living my life. I’ve got three kids, I’m working and running around.
“And how do I feel about aging? I don’t have a doctorate on it or treaties or (I have) not written a thesis. I’m just living a life. The only time I think about it, in all sincerity, is when interviewers asked me about how I feel about aging.
“I mean, I would pose the same question to you all right now, how do you feel about aging? I feel like it’s inevitable. I feel like what are you going to do? What consideration of it is productive?
“It’s such a confounding question to me,” she reiterated, “because I don’t think about it. I just carry on. I have a rich professional life. I have a wonderful life as a parent.”
She further reflected: “I’ve asked a huge amount of my feet and my body and my legs. I was a dancer for 100 years and then I was a hugely physical actor for many, many years. My physical life on screen is as important as the words I say sometimes.
“Do my feet, like, feel like they were running for, you know, 25 years in heels? Do I do this sometimes because I’ve asked my body to do things or I’m simply sitting on a computer. Those probably accumulate — an accumulation of years spent in my body, my skeleton, of taking things on.
“How do I feel about aging? You know, probably the same way everybody else does. It’s like, ‘Oh, man, that didn’t hurt last year.’ Beyond that is for everyone else to speculate about, I guess,” she honestly said.
Lessons and legacy
It might not be about aging but Sarah Jessica did share her biggest takeaway from playing Carrie. She said it’s her character’s ideas of friendship.
“I’ve learned about what comes from that kind of devotion to friendships and how to sustain them. It’s unusual to have that kind of time for friendships. A lot of people don’t have that time to devote when they want to, even if they want to.
“That has been most impressionable to me is how those friendships have sustained themselves and how they work to sustain them. That’s something that honestly has inspired me about my own friendships… For that, it’s just highly irregular. But it’s made me certainly want to be as good a friend as Carrie has been, even when she fell short.”
As for lessons Carrie had outside her friendships, they are meant for the character rather than for the actress bringing her to life.
Sarah Jessica explained that the way Carrie lives her life isn’t really applicable to her own life.
“My life has always been so different. We’ve made entirely different choices. I had a very different single life. I was single, certainly, but it wasn’t as colorful. I married, I think, fairly sooner than Carrie. I had children, that wasn’t a choice she made. I’ve devoted myself to different things. So, I think the lessons really have been for her and not for me, if that makes sense?” she said.
Nevertheless, Sarah Jessica feels grateful to be essaying a “complex” and “complicated” character that audiences are surprised by her.
“But, you know, our friends and families surprise us all the time. And complicated people are compelling,” she said.
As for question on what she believed to be SATC’s legacy, Sarah Jessica noted she’s “bad at legacy stuff.”
“I haven’t participated in that conversation. I’m certainly aware we’ve been around for 25 years, that we got to be part of and continue to be part of a show that has had an impact with people.
“People have very strong feelings about it. Some good, occasionally some not so good. Even for those that feel good, it was, has been, certainly from the beginning different.
“It was a different way of women having conversations and different use of language, illustrating women’s relationship radically and differently in some ways than commercial television had allowed and even cinema. But I will leave it to everybody else to tell us.
“Often, it’s an academic exercise for people, what is the legacy of the show, what impact it has had. I feel while we’re still in the midst of doing it, it’s not productive for me to be thinking about that.”
(And Just Like That Season 2’s first and second episodes are now streaming on HBO GO, with Episode 3 premiering today.)
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