Last night we had one of those New York nights, you know, the kind that Carrie Bradshaw waxes poetic about as she stares out the window of her East 73rd Street walk-up and types away on her Mac PowerBook G3. What made it a momentous occasion was that Bradshaw herself, okay Sarah Jessica Parker, was there, in person, dressed in one of those wonderfully whimsical outfits. She wore a floral print Tracy Reese dress, grey jacket she designed for Halston, kicky SJP Collection 'Alyssa' ankle boots, and a bracelet that was craftily repurposed from the chain of a Dolce & Gabbana bag from the Sex and the City costume department.
The occasion was a conversation between Parker, born-and-raised New Yorker, and her friend Jonathan Tisch at one of the city's greatest cultural institutions, the 92Y. The evening held promise of an in-depth discussion of her life and didn't dissapoint as we not only got to bask in her unassuming candor and sartorial dexterity, but learned even more about the women we've idolized since our first brush with SATC.
For instance, we had a total, "Wait, what?!" moment upon learning that Parker had seriously considered bowing out of playing Bradshaw. "When I read the script, I found it sort of perplexing because this character was so radically different than me," she confessed. Fortunately, for our not-yet-materialized big city ambitions, it was practically written in the stars. "I showed up to work the first day and never looked back," she said, all smiles.
While we'd readily reccount the entire night's tête--tête, here are our favorite SJP snippets:
On her takeaway from SATC: "The thing that I wanted to take from that experience was how to be a friend and that investment — the way that Carrie showed her affection [for her female friends]. I try to be a good friend and I hope that I don't fall too short. It changed the way I look at my friendships."
On a third SATC movie: "I'm going to give you a straight answer. I've been so cagey, I try to be funny, but we're at the 92Y and I want to give it its proper due. The truth is there's been absolutely no substantive conversation about a third movie, ever. Michael Patrick and I long ago talked about the movie and how we'd break it up into three acts. So the first movie being the first act, the second being the second act, and that there was, in the sort of narrative, there is a third story. But whether or not we can tell it has honestly never been discussed. It's not that I'm inhospitable or that Michael doesn't want to, I think we just haven't felt it was the right time to talk about it. In my head, it's a smaller movie."
On Twitter and Instagram: "Let me make sure we understand this, I had been resisting it. [...] I had been producing a documentary series on the New York City Ballet and I thought, finally a reason I can stomach. I can talk about this extraordinary dance company, these extraordinary dancers — talk about something that deserves time and certainly 140 characters. I feel I have a complicated relationship with Twitter. Instagram and I seem to be, um… I find that it's an easier relationship."
On her style icons: "This is going to sound like a bunch of malarkey, but I'll tell you, I love the streets. I love seeing what women on the streets wear. I love seeing it on the subways, I love seeing people come in from different boroughs. The way they wear their hair, the way they wear their jeans. [...] I love the same thing when I travel. I love when I go to any other place, that seems completely new to me, because you get to see far more. I really mean it when I say this, those women that I'll never know have been as influential to me as anyone else."
