Be Entertained!
The actress opens up about her marriage
In her four decades in showbiz, there’s been one constant in Sarah Jessica Parker’s life – she’s always in control. “I’m in charge of my own bank account and I’ve had the same business manager since I was 13,” the former child actress declares.
Sarah Jessica relishes being in the driver’s seat, but the star admits her character Frances in TV’s Divorce struggles with it.
As she sips green tea in her New York hotel suite, the 53-year-old tells Woman’sDay how the second season starts with papers being signed. “She’s not very good at this exercise of divorce,” the actress says of Frances. “But she does seem to be finally in control in many ways.”
Frances is somewhat ambivalent about her newfound freedom, she adds. “There are money concerns, there’s being a single parent and there’s the disappointment about failing in your marriage.”
It’s not something Sarah Jessica knows much about – she’s been happily married to actor Matthew Broderick, 55, for 20 years and has three children, James, 15, and twins Tabitha and Marion, eight.
“The show explores a tough question you ask as married people” she says. “You have something worth fighting for, but when do you stop fighting? Frances doesn’t fight for her marriage past a certain point, but I’ve never found there’s been damage you can’t fix.”
Despite being synonymous with SexandtheCity’s Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica is delightfully old-fashioned.
She peppers her chat with “gosh” and “my goodness”, as she shrugs off jetlag from a recent business trip to the Middle East for her shoe company. “I’m involved in it the way I am in everything, which is completely and utterly and to the point of exhaustion,” she says, rolling her eyes.
As star and producer of Divorce, Sarah Jessica is also hands on when the show’s writers need help with storylines. “If I ever feel I can contribute ideas, it’s about how we parent our children and where we fall short,” she tells.
After a highly public war of words with her co-star Kim Cattrall, the actress confirms there is no longer another Sex
andtheCity movie sequel in the works, but she’s proud of the legacy of the series. “When we first aired, people weren’t depicting those kinds of conversations about sex and relationships. Now it’s normal.”
Sarah Jessica hopes this helps lead the shift towards women reporting sexual abuse. “I’ve been watching what’s going on in the same way most women are,” she says of the #MeToo movement. “The conversation was inevitable and painful and really good. We just have to not be afraid to have it.”