Sarah Jessica Parker Breaks Down Her Most Iconic Characters
Released on 11/09/2018
I'm very surprised that I've had these experiences
in certain movies that have really been impactful
in some way, often surprising.
You know, even Hocus Pocus and LA Story or Ed Wood,
Mars Attacks, Sex and the City, these are all things
that they've been resonant with people for many years.
I feel that's an unusual experience to have
more than one of those and I feel lucky.
[upbeat music]
Hocus Pocus.
I've only seen it once. [laughing]
I saw the premier the week before it opened, I guess.
There was a premier in Los Angeles
and that's the only time I've seen it.
So, I'm often not able to answer a lot of questions.
I mean, I just, obviously we just...
There's a big anniversary right now,
so I did an interview and I've been reminded of some stuff,
but most mostly, I only see something one time.
It's preferable for me.
It's not pleasant for me to watch myself.
When you're watching, at least I find, myself in a movie,
I feel like I'm paying attention to thing that I think
are less important than the story that it's telling.
Sometimes you're experiencing the day
that you were shooting,
but I really do think audiences remember
much more about it than I do.
I remember more the experience of shooting it
than I do the story.
I'm not entirely sure I could tell you
the main character's names,
the children's character's names,
but the process of shooting was very long.
It was an unusually long shooting schedule
because I think of the special effects.
And actually, a bunch of people got sick
so we shut down for a while.
Somebody said to me, well,
were you surprised it wasn't a bigger hit?
And I was like, I had no idea.
I thought it was.
And I remember specifically the weekend that it opened
I was in Los Angeles still
I guess because I was out there doing press
and the phone rang very early on a Saturday morning I think
and it was Jeffrey Katzenberg
screaming we made nine million...
So, my experience was that it was a great success.
Well, it certainly made its money back.
LA Story.
I got a call from my agent
and there was a casting director in Los Angeles.
I think her name was Mindy Maren,
and she was casting this new Steve Martin movie
that he'd written,
and I loved Steve Martin and knew a huge amount
about his work and very particular things
about the way he worked.
And so I loved him and I very much wanted the part,
but it seemed like a real long shot to me.
And for some reason, I understood her.
I understood, or I thought I understood,
what I sort of assumed Steve Martin imagined
as he wrote this part.
And I enjoyed myself.
It wasn't an audition where I was really nervous,
which one can be.
And then I just kept getting called back
and I did a screen test with Steve Martin,
which was really fun and terrifying also.
But yeah, then I got the part and got to play it.
Sandy in LA Story is, she has no definition, really.
She's sort of this floating, ever-changing,
this person who's soaking up other ideas
of a definition or an identity,
and she's foolish and silly
and doesn't seem terribly bright.
I mean, she's probably brighter than she lets on,
but for some reason I think she has to...
Maybe she's more attractive if she's not smart.
Some memories on movies become sort of mushy.
You remember an experience rather than specificity,
but I yeah, I remember vividly many scenes.
In particular, I think from the beginning I had this idea
that she would be moving all the time.
That wasn't really written so much in the script,
the bouncing.
There was a specific movement
that was almost written as stage direction
and almost like choreography,
but there was others that I just started doing.
And eventually, the director, Mick Jackson,
who I loved and I had, he done all these,
he had done great films in the UK and in London,
he would eventually just get to the point
where he just had a megaphone.
He'd say and bounce and action,
like he would just tell me to bounce around.
But yeah, I sort of remember all the scenes
and time off camera as well.
Sitting, waiting, kind of staring at Steve.
I guess for some people it feels a little bit
like it's a little bit an amber.
It was a very specific time and a way of observing
the larger sort of ideas about Los Angeles.
I'll have a decaf coffee.
I'll have a decaf espresso.
I I'll have a double decaf cappuccino.
Do you have any decaffeinated coffee ice cream?
I'll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf
with a twist of lemon.
I'll have a twist of lemon.
My guess is that they'd be still really accurate.
Honeymoon in Vegas.
I think I got the part in Honeymoon in Vegas
because of LA Story.
That's what Andy Bergman told me when I met him.
I didn't even audition for Honeymoon in Vegas,
they just offered me the part,
which I really couldn't believe.
I couldn't believe.
I'd never been offered a part, especially a lead in a movie,
and a real major motion picture.
And she wasn't similar at all to Sandy,
which is what surprised me
about being cast based on LA Story.
But Betsy in Honeymoon in Vegas is really bright.
She's a schoolteacher,
she's a professional person and shows up every day
and is, in fact, very conventional,
which is the opposite of Sandy who defies all convention
and doesn't believe in any conventions period.
Betsy is a teacher who believes in kind of rules
and a model for living,
but funny because she's written by Andy Bergman
who's one of the great comedy screenwriters.
You brought me to Las Vegas
and you turned me into a hooker, Jack!
I read with all the men.
There were many many auditions and screen tests,
and it was very apparent to everybody
the minute that Nick came in.
I mean, there was just nothing more to be said
and nobody else to meet.
Working with him was fantastic.
I mean, it was truly great and inspired
and fun and surprising, very very surprising,
and it just made my job easy in a way.
I mean, it's not easy,
but there was really the most perfect example
of listening responding because he's so compelling opposite.
And yeah, I mean, I loved him.
Working with James Caan was incredible.
He has this very kind of amazing thing
that I've never seen in another actor's eyes
in my entire life,
and I've stared across and looked in the eyes
of a lot of actors, and especially male actors.
His eyes actually flicker.
It's a very...
I've not seen anybody else's eyes actually spark.
They sort of have flashes in them.
That is, it's really something,
and it can be both terrifying and seductive,
but when it's terrifying, it's really quite something.
Ed Wood.
Tim just had been pondering this, making this,
telling this story for a very long time,
and he just had a wealth of stuff
for me to read and look at, and that was really important.
But then there comes a point
where you're just trying to be real
given your script and the scenes that I had to play.
I think the harder part is just
I really wanted to mimic those scenes
that we were recreating, which was an amazing experience.
We were really within the scale everything, and to me,
that was the most...
That's the thing I wanted to be most authentic about.
The rest of it you can't quite do
when you're playing somebody real.
You don't wanna...
Then you get too caught up in things
that you have no control over.
But the recreation of those scenes was hugely exciting
and fun to sort out and get right,
and I listened over and over again
and watched those clips over and over again.
I think they're pretty close.
Working for Tim Burton, and that was the first time,
I did another movie with him shortly after that,
and he's just absolutely fantastic to work for
because he's so clear and so specific.
Every frame is...
You understand so well what he wants.
I think his specificity is enormously helpful.
You're really fitting into a painting
that he's kind of already created, and I like that.
I love working with Johnny Depp.
I thought he was really sweet and great to work with,
great on the set to everybody, human, deeply human,
and just loved his work.
He loved his work.
He loved being an actor.
And Martin Landau played Lugosi, and he won an Oscar.
It was thrilling and so deserved.
I mean, he'd been around for so long
and had been doing great work for a really long time
and he was such a good, kind man.
So humble, you know, he was journeyman.
He was just working all the time
and so happy to be working when he was,
and he was a great, lovely person.
Mars Attacks!
Tim Burton just asked if I would do Mars Attacks!
and I said yes.
I mean, anybody would've.
I mean, when I read the script I was like really?
Alright, you know, sure.
I mean, I just think anybody would want
to work with Tim Burton and would wanna do,
no matter how strange, kinda help him fulfill his vision.
I wasn't at all familiar with those kids of movies.
I mean, with the exception of familiarizing myself
with Ed Wood genre and those movies,
I didn't really know as much the movies
that he was sort of kind of recreating in a way.
You kinda do what you're told in a way that I really like.
There's always a really strong costume designer
whose point of view is playing a really pivotal part
in what an audience is experiencing,
and the hair and makeup department's always really strong.
I mean, there's all these other creative influences
that are helping you so much.
Yeah, I turned into, was it her dog?
I think it was her dog.
[Man] Natalie, is that you?
Yes.
How are you feeling?
Pierce Brosnan was involved in that.
Was he a wild, like a crazy scientist, like a mad scientist?
Something like that. Yeah, something like that.
The Family Stone.
I loved that part, and once again,
that was the kind of part I've never played before
and I really, I really liked it.
I mean, I was very nervous in a way making that movie.
Not daily on the set, but trying to figure it out.
Tom Bazucha who wrote and directed it,
Tom was really helpful.
Tom was really, he was strict with me in an interesting way.
He wanted me to play this part,
but he also wanted pieces of me gone.
So, it was interesting and I was very happy to...
I didn't feel that he was not appreciative
of what I have to bring or my own skills,
but he wanted something else for me.
And part of that was really scary
because it was being watched in a way, I felt.
And I was intimidated by Diane Keaton
even though I had known her.
We did First Wives Club years before,
but this was so intimately...
We were in each other's faces so much,
and I wanted her to like me, but I loved that movie.
I was really proud of it.
I was proud of everybody's work, I was proud of my work,
and when I saw it, I loved it.
I mean, I really loved it.
I love Craig T. Nelson.
I mean, the whole cast is many people have gone on.
There were some folks in that movie
who were relatively unknown at the time.
Not unknown, but you know,
Rachel McAdams and Elizabeth Reaser.
These were actresses that were just starting to emerge,
and I thought Luke Wilson was so great in it and Dermott.
I thought they were such great performances.
Sex and the City.
That part and that story and that...
I think they are so daily in my life
in ways that are probably very obvious
and then ways that aren't,
whether it's people on Instagram
or walking down the street of New York
or people seeing me or me having a memory of a cross street
where I shot two dozen or more scenes.
So, I feel like it's not far away,
but the experience is in many ways, and I feel,
for the most part I feel fine about it.
I mean, I had hopes that we would get to make another movie,
and I as excited I think
because it finally felt right in the story.
So, I mostly feel great,
like I love where we got to leave all of them.
I think they're all probably doing really well
and still enjoying that friendship and their city
or maybe some hame left.
Charlotte might have finally moved to the suburbs,
my guess is.
But it's a real privilege to have that.
Not just the memory of the experience,
but have the connection with the audience
that was initially along with us and discovering us,
but today, a whole new generation of young women
stop me literally every single day of my life
to share their feelings and thoughts and affection
for this show and the movie,
and that's a privilege and it's a professional blessing,
no doubt.
[upbeat music]
It's not so much that I feel Carrie within me.
I mean, we would have stretches of time
and then we'd come back to work
and you would sort it out pretty quickly.
You'd rediscover like it's a muscle or something
that is slightly atrophied on a hiatus.
So, you'd find that stuff very quickly,
but it's part of you in ways that you can't...
IT's hard to articulate the ways in which it sort of,
it's in you.
It's part of your memories,
it's part of your most important professional moments
and years and time spent,
it's incredibly sentimental and nostalgic.
But the character isn't in me because I...
She's somebody else's creation, really,
and I long to play other people and other parts.
But if asked to find her again, I could manage.
Here and Now.
Well, the character in Here and Now,
her name is Vivian and she is a singer
with relative success in New York.
She's had a career that she's both,
that is both a source of pride and frustration.
The movie really is a story
about a woman who gets a diagnosis,
and it's a portrait of this next 24 hours in her life
as she absorbs this information.
And it's about love and loss and I think coming to terms
with the role you've played in your own life
and the relationships you have with those around you
and with the city that both loves and betrays you.
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