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SARAH JESSICA PARKER
Back with her first TV series since Sex And The City – a sitcom about an imploding marriage – Sarah Jessica Parker tells why she and husband Matthew Broderick are still together after 20 years
As she returns to TV in a sitcom about Divorce, the Sex And The City star reveals why her own marriage has lasted almost 20 years
‘Nobody’s flawless, but I think we both try’
Sex And The City’s Sarah Jessica Parker celebrates her 20th wedding anniversary with actor husband Matthew Broderick next May – but first she’s got to go through a long divorce wrangle. It’s not her own marriage that’s breaking up, though. Divorce is the title of her new sitcom, which she hopes will do for uncoupling couples what Sex And The City did for single women with relationship problems.
‘ Divorce is such a strange experience,’ she tells me when we meet in Los Angeles. ‘We always think of it as a one-person endeavour, but the truth is that you really need to be able to do it together with the person you’re leaving. In fact, the great irony about divorce is that in order to get divorced, you really need to work with the very person you’re divorcing. Divorce is almost always difficult, but there are a lot of things about it that are humorous too – people behave well and they behave badly, they cling like parasites or they relish t he d rama. Every divorce is unique and the events that surround each one can be profoundly sad and also ridiculous at the same time.’
So when she was approached by Londonborn writer and actress Sharon Horgan (creator and star of TV sitcoms Catastrophe and Pulling) four years ago with an idea for a series following the long path of a divorce, and its effect not only on the couple themselves but on their families and friends too, she says she was immediately intrigued.
‘I’ve never considered ending my own marriage, but of course I know people who have, and I can only imagine how hard it would be. My parents were divorced when I was an infant, and I have siblings and friends whose marriages have broken up. Everybody knows somebody who’s divorced. So there are a lot of stories out there, and from them we’ve carved one that felt right for our characters.’
In the show – produced by HBO, the studio that made Sex And The City – she plays Frances, half of a well-to-do couple living in an affluent suburb of New York, who starts to realise that her marriage to husband Rober t ( Thomas Haden Church, star of the acclaimed 2004 movie Sideways, and the Sandman in Spider-Man 3) has come to its end. During the course of the series, Sarah with husband Matthew Frances behaves in ways that are surprising, sometimes even unsympathetic – but that, says Sarah Jessica, is part of what makes her believable. ‘I love Frances,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t mean I feel her choices are always honourable, or even principled, but I recognise that she’s like a lot of men and women who are feeling weary in their marriages, and that’s just the reality for many people.
‘ I think the line that best describes her situation is where she says to her husband, “Sometimes I feel happy, and then I come home and see your car in the driveway and my heart sinks.” That’s something a lot of people feel, and it takes some courage to say it. Frances also says, “I want to save my life while I still have a chance.” Some people might argue that some of her actions are selfish, but on the other hand it’s very scary to leave the life you know and start over, and I admire her for it.’
Suffice to say it’s not a step she herself is contemplating taking any time soon. She says she and her husband Matthew, the star of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Producers, are very firmly together. ‘I try to be a good friend, and a good partner and a good wife. I think I do all right on that. Nobody’s flawless, and it’s very hard to be married and to do it really well, but I think we both try, and so far it seems to be working out. I feel very content and satis- fied with us as a couple, and I think Matthew does too. I think the nicest thing Matthew has ever done for me was to marry me, and the nicest thing I’ve ever done for him was to marry him.’
They met in November 1991, when Matthew was directing Sarah’s brother, actor Toby Parker, in a play at the Naked Angels Theatre Company in New York. ‘And one evening, my brother and a friend and Matthew were all going to the movies and they invited me to join them. The movie was sold out, so we all walked up Sixth Avenue to another theatre and got talking on the way.’
Sarah was at the time best known for her breakout role as ultimate Californian space cadet SanDeE* in Steve Martin’s hit Los Angeles satire LA Story, a romcom- comefantasy parodying life in early 1990s LA. She was immediately smitten by the sophisticated young New Yorker. ‘He was just so funny and charming and smart, and he knew so much. He grew up in Manhattan, and he knew all the good spots, he read books and went to museums and was really interesting.
With co-star Thomas Haden Church in their new sitcom Divorce Plus, he’s so beautiful to look at, which is definitely a bonus! By the time we got together we weren’t kids any more – I was 26, which was practically old. But I don’t think you know exactly what you’re looking for in life until you actually smash into it, and let’s say that with Matthew, I knew pretty quickly that he was The One. What’s so decent about Matthew is that he’s a man before he’s an actor, and this relationship was about solidity and real life caring. It still is.’
The couple live in New York’s fashionable West Village with their children James Wilkie, 14, and twins Marion and Tabitha, seven. ‘The children are well and happy and they amuse me,’ says Sarah. ‘They all have their own wonderful things that make them odd and eccentric. My son is interested in music and soccer. My daughters are interested in art and reading and trying a lot of different things, some of which are fleeting, as they should be. Right now they like riding horses, although I don’t know how long that will last, and they love gardening and animals and braiding hair. They also like fighting – they’re very keen on that!’
She says that the cornerstone of her and Matthew’s parental phi losop hy is in keeping the lines of communication with their children open. ‘It’s about giving good information and not making certain subjects verboten, but rather in actually talking about the things that are of concern to myself and Matthew, not laying down hard and fast rules about anything without explaining why we have these feelings and what we think is safe. ‘My son in particular is at an age where he has to start determining safety on his own, so we sometimes wonder how we can best shepherd him through this time to help him make smart choices. It’s a scary world out there in some ways. But I think that sheltering him and shutting off information from him is not going to allow him the coping mechanisms he’s going to need.
‘It’s a complicated balance and we talk about it a lot, to each other and to other parents. Luckily we seem to have a son who wants to hear our thoughts and who enjoys trying to make mature decisions, so hopefully we’ve done right by him so far.’
The children are learning to cope with their mother’s borderline workaholic tendencies. Take Divorce for instance, on which Sarah was originally only supposed to be a producer. ‘But at a certain point in the process it became clear to me that HBO assumed I would be taking part on the screen, and at first I was quite confounded by that. I actually had to go to somebody and ask, “Um, are you actually thinking I’m in this?” Because I understand what that kind of acting commitment means, and the energy and emotion it calls for, and it’s not something you take on lightly.’
In the end she couldn’t resist though. ‘I loved the project from the beginning, and as it moved along I found I just couldn’t say no to appearing in it too. I love TV, I love the pace and urgency of it, I love the long life that it allows for the development of a character, which is something you just can’t do in a two-hour film. So I spoke to my family and explained to them that I would be away for a while making this series, and I got their blessing.’ Slowing down isn’t on her agenda, she says. ‘People sometimes ask me if I’m a workaholic. I don’t know about that, but I do know that everybody in my family really enjoys working hard. I always have. I star ted acting when I was eight and I got my first play on Broadway when I was 11. And I loved it – I remember going to auditions and having to wait for a call back with an answer. And to this day, despite the fact that my career has changed, I still love getting the job. OK, these days I know more and I have more experiences to draw on, but I’m not any more cavalier about it – I worry just as much as I ever did and I’m as nervous as I was, if not more so. It’s because I love it so much.’
Ask her when she takes time for herself, and she looks a little puzzled. ‘ I do everything that’s required,’ she says. ‘You sort it out and you squeeze it in and you just find the time. I took time off just the day before yesterday. I’d just arrived in LA and I had no appointments, so I just read all day and it was great. It felt like a two-week holiday in fact. It was fantastic!’
‘It’s scary to leave the life you know and start over’
Divorce begins on Tuesday at 10.10pm on Sky Atlantic.