Sex and the City Movie: Interviews with Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis--And Yes! Sarah Jessica Parker!

Theyyyy'reeee baaaack!

OMFG!!! As we all know, the Sex and the City Movie is slated to hit theaters on May 30th. (There’s a new trailer out, yo.) Cosmos will suddenly be back in style, and women will again strut down city streets in slow-motion sporting vertigo-inducing heels. We'll again brunch over stories of trashy conquests and fake orgasms. Welcome back to 1998 all over again!

But for now... How about some interview dish? Yes, I got to interview all of the four female stars of Sex and the City last Thursday and Friday. For real!

I did my best Carrie Bradshaw strut over to the Ritz-Carlton to scooch around a little tables in a hotel room, cramming in next to a bunch of foreign journalists from South Africa, Mexico, France, Denmark and Italy. Then, one at a time, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis and Sarah Jessica Parker paraded through and sat down with us for about 30 minutes each.

Watch the new trailer here! Read all the interview dish after the jump!

The movie poster in the Ritz-Carlton hallway. Bring on SJP!

My fave of the four I interviewed? Cynthia Nixon. I've always loved Miranda, and Cynthia's just totally cool and real and relaxed. And she’s raising kids with her lesbian partner. What’s not to love?

Kim Cattrall was appropriately grand and flirty. Kristin Davis was super-nice and much less twitty than her alter-ego Charlotte. She’s great.

And Sarah Jessica Parker? She was cool, but much more serious and modest than you might expect. Very, very nice, but very cautious in most of her answers. You almost wish she’d goof off and play the diva more, but alas…

And yes, all of the ladies looked great. (No photos were allowed. Argh.)

Who looked best? Frankly, I thought Kristin Davis looked the most naturally pretty. She may be the youngest (though she’s 40+), so I don’t want to seem ageist. But still she looked fresh and fierce. Her makeup was very natural; she kind of glowed. That said, they all looked good. (Would they show up to meet the press looking otherwise?)

And yes, they were dressed. More specifically…

WHAT THEY WERE WEARING

Sarah Jessica Parker
She wore a sand/beige Versace dress, with a silky gray/slate Halston jacket draped around her. With a smart little Fendi bag and Brian Atwood heels. Less colorful than Carrie, much more subdued, earth-toney urban executrix. Her hair was light brown and flowing, with some blonde curled highlights kicking it up a bit. She’s tiny and her features are more severe in person. But she looked good.

Kim Cattrall
Fabulous! Wearing a Michael Kors black/grey pattern dress, with her shoulders bared. Nice tan and some frosty blonde highlights. And some fun bangly gold earrings and a big, earthy gold flower ring.

Kristin Davis
Rocking a black Prada blouse, black Dolce & Gabbana skirt, and black Prada heels. Long straight brown hair and sparkling diamond earrings. Serving way more classic chic; much less country-club than Charlotte.

Cynthia Nixon
Not surprisingly, the most wonkily normal of the bunch. Her hair was reddish-blonde and she was rocking a hearty orange Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress. As she put it: “I figured if my hair wasn't orange enough at least my dress was game.”

Now, on to the matters at hand:

HOW THE MOVIE CAME TO BE
Not surprisingly, none of the women addressed the constant hearsay about how allegedly Kim Cattrall had not wanted to do the film or doesn’t get along with the other actresses (namely SJP, according to rumor). Or that she had held out for more money. But here’s what they did say…

Kim Cattrall: Early last year Chris Albrecht [the head honcho from HBO] called me when I was just about to go to Dublin, Ireland to do a thing for ITV. He told me, “I was in a movie theatre watching The Devil Wears Prada, it was absolutely packed and I looked around and realized, ‘We created this audience.’ And I think we really need to do the film.”

Cynthia Nixon: I got a call from Chris Albrecht and he said, “I wanna do this. Are you on board?” I was like... “Well, sure.” And then about a year later we found ourselves making it.

Sarah Jessica Parker: It was all amazing. I started working on putting this movie back together in the spring of 2006, so by the time we started shooting on September 19th, 2007 it was so unreal to me that we had managed to get all the parts and pieces together. Michael Patrick [King] and I worked endlessly for the last year prior to shooting. Everything was so complicated, and to produce this movie was a massive undertaking. But then all of a sudden there we were on September 19th to start shooting and it was… It was a dream, honestly.

The mobs around the movie-making. Shooting a scene on the streets of NYC. Camera phones, ahoy!

ON MAKING THE MOVIE & THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Cynthia Nixon: It was wild. My first day was the second or third day of filming, when all four of us were working for the first time. We were back in these outfits, and these heels again. And we'd  been away from it, and now there were 200 people and photographers on the street watching, which was very new for us. And we had to re-learn how to walk down the street and walk in unison and not teeter over in our heels, but it kind of felt great. What it felt like was a four-headed eight-legged organism.

Kristin Davis: Cynthia said, it’s like almost going back to high school, yet not. There’s an intense familiarity between us, and we are in many ways like sisters. We finish each others’ sentences and we were never separated from each other. People kept saying how is it to be back together? But we were never separated, we just had to go back to being our characters which was a very surreal.

Kim Cattrall: It was so easy. God, it was so fabulous—and fun. The most difficult thing was the first day, there were so many crowds on the street and they were screaming and yelling and I just was really kind of... It kind of broke my concentration. I was overwhelmed, as I think all of us were. Because I didn’t know what to expect and there’s someone screaming in the middle of a scene, “I love you Samantha!” or “Carrie, I’m over here!” We had never really dealt with that. But we were kind of asking for it, shooting on Park Avenue in September, in the late afternoon, while the city was packed.

Kristin Davis: The cacophony and insanity... It was shocking—mainly because of the paparazzi now. That whole thing has escalated since we did the pilot in ’97. Like, a few years ago when Sarah was pregnant and they started trailing her 24/7 it was frightening and strange. And now that’s common.

My first day shooting was with Chris Noth and there were maybe 10 paparazzi video cameras on us all day all the time. While we were acting, and while we weren’t. As we were filming the scene! I was like, “Aren’t they getting the dialogue?” You want the scene to be a surprise when they see it. We’d had the paparazzi before, but not the video before. It was weird having video cameras in your face all the time. That was new.

SO WHAT HAPPENS IN THE MOVIE?
The women were stingy with any details, but the new trailer shows that Charlotte’s raising her adopted Asian daughter and might finally get pregnant. Miranda and Steve are having problems, Samantha may be with Smith but she still has a roving eye. And Carrie and Big are wedding-bound, but… Are they?

Sarah Jessica Parker: The movie doesn’t pick up right where the series ended, it's a few years later, which makes everything—well, in terms of Carrie’s life specifically, there's much more at stake. There’s a lot more time invested in her relationship with Big, and obviously in her friendships, her career and what she thinks is the destination point in her life.

The story—which is like the whole series—is about friendship and growing up and the decisions we make and the triumphs. And it's about the massive disappointment and the mistakes, and what you learn and what you don’t learn when you should learn. A lot of this movie is going to be surprising to people. This is a grown-up movie.

Things happen in this movie that are very… Basically, it's about the despair you feel when you’re 20 versus the despair you feel or the loss you feel when you’re 40, and they are vastly different. And the movie really addresses it, and it really looks at how important your friendships are.

The movie is just so packed with stuff. And something major happens that fundamentally changes who Carrie is. She’s a new person in a lot of ways in this movie, because she finds herself at the crucible for the first time. Everything is different.

Cynthia Nixon: Miranda is still in Brooklyn, is still unhappy about it, and still advancing at her job, in her firm. Her son is thriving but her marriage is kind of mmmmm—not doing so great. We are dealing with unfaithfulness, but even more than unfaithfulness, I think we are just dealing with the daily grind that can take its toll on a relationship.

Miranda also has her mother-in-law who has Alzheimer’s to care for, which takes up a lot of time. So I think that just the relationship suffers, the relationship is the dispensable thing on the back burner.

Kristin Davis: Charlotte is trying to be a good mother. She has her adopted daughter, and she’s an overachiever so #1 in her mind would be to be a good mother and friend, and a good wife, too. My fear is that there are no surprises left. People are going to pay to see it and I hope there will be something that will be a surprise.

Cynthia Nixon: We're all kind of further along in our lives. But I also think two things: One is that in order to justify our coming back, and also being on the big screen, we need to have big stories. They can't be about "I'm dating a guy and he’s got funky spunk!" That’s funny, but that’s not going to carry us through the film.

So I think the stakes are really, really high. And I also feel like the way we, the four characters deal with each other, is more mature than it was. None of us are single anymore. We're all in our own little “queendoms” and we come together again, but it’s really on a more mature level.

Kim Cattrall: Samantha is older, we all are. And that in itself is huge. It’s a huge struggle in our world, still. And that’s why I am so happy to be of a certain age playing a woman of a certain age. We changed the way people thought about 40, so maybe we can do that with 50 and maybe 60, hopefully...

The gals and the series' and film's writer/director, Michael Patrick King.

WHAT ABOUT THE GAY SENSIBILITY OF SEX AND THE CITY?

Cynthia Nixon: For the first couple of years, we didn't have any women writers on the show. The two writers we had were gay men and there was this idea, that actually these characters are not really women, they are really gay men—which was always very annoying.

Kristin Davis: Eventually we were aware of people saying that. In the beginning, we were in our little bubble of trying to make a good show and hoping everybody didn’t run us out of town.

When people started saying, “They’re really gay men,” we were like, “Wait a minute! That’s a little far-fetched.” I wasn’t trying to play a gay man. But when something hits, people project a lot and at a certain point, you go, “They're going to say what they are going to say.” And you just go with it.

Cynthia Nixon: Michael Patrick King and Darren Starr were very aware when they first started doing it that there were no female writers. They thought they could maybe compensate for that by hiring a lot of female directors. So we had a lot of female directors, which was great as an equal-opportunity hiring practice but in the end it just didn’t cut it. So, from then on for the bulk of the show it was Michael Patrick and seven women writing the show.

Sarah Jessica Parker: There were a lot of women writers on that staff. But I think it became sort of this idea about it being run by gay men, but really it wasn’t. It was very out of balance actually, female to male. Michael Patrick was the only man on the writing staff, and everybody else was a straight woman.

Kim Cattrall: People always said to me “You play a gay man,” and I'd say, “Well, I’m having a fabulous time doing it!”—without the difficult things about being gay in America, or especially in someplace like Russia. I was just in Russia and it’s a crime to be gay. So actually I’m very thankful for our gay following.

I think our gay sensibility has really given the show so much more than I thought was in there to begin with, because of that fun and panache and crazy, zany stuff… I mean, that whole storyline we had with the trannies was just fabulous. Where would you see something like that?

Kristin Davis: When the gay community embraced the show, we were thrilled. Who wouldn’t be thrilled? You’re not the easiest group in the world to please. And also, we’re all Manhattan theater people, so to us that seemed normal.

Sarah Jessica Parker: To me, I’m from New York City and I grew up in the world of theater, so I just always think that the gay community is part of culture. To me… It’s a natural progression of creating art or culture and entertainment, that gay people are a part of it.

And obviously it’s a show about women in a city that has a large gay community, so yeah, it’s a natural. But I will say it became clear to us early on that they were a committed audience. Certainly before straight white men. Definitely, definitely.

Kim Cattrall: I always hoped the show would be loved by a gay audience, because then you will live forever! [Laughs.]

Gay folks love "Sex and the City." And so does Tom Cruise. Ahem...

AND SPEAKING OF GAY STUFF… DID THE SHOW’S PROGRESSIVE REPUTATION MAKE IT EASIER FOR ONE OF YOU TO, ER, COME OUT?

Cynthia Nixon: It’s funny, when I announced and said, “Yes I'm dating a woman,” it freaked people out a lot. I think people have a hard time separating us from our characters. So people were like, “Miranda is GAY!???” And there were all these crazy things I would read in the paper, like “…but Miranda kissed a girl and she didn't like it. And Samantha’ s had a lesbian lover, shouldn’t she be the one?”

And another freaky thing was because our characters are seen as so iconic, it was also viewed as maybe like, “Hmmm, is this is a trend?” Like, maybe this is what happens to these women, who are out there and dating a lot of men. Eventually they start dating women, that's what happens. This is where Sex and the City takes you! Miranda dated too many men and, well, whatta you know? Now, this.

Cynthia Nixon with her partner, Christine Marinoni.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE CLOTHES? THE FASHION ANGLE?

Cynthia Nixon: I see women on the street, and I see them in the dress with the hair and the shoes and I think, “Oh, we did that.” I’ll see a silhouette and I think to myself—and I might be wrong—“That woman would not be wearing that outfit, that style of outfit, if it was not for our show.”

Sarah Jessica Parker: I realize that a great part of who Carrie is is that she loves fashion and has a great relationship with clothes, but it’s not really the sum of who she is. If that had been the case, I don’t think the show really would still resonate. That can’t keep a show on the air for that long.

Kristin Davis: Did the shoes hurt? Oh, we got used to that. But in the middle of the night, it was as if we’d be thinking, “This is how we earn our check – wearing these shoes.”

Costume Designer and NYC legend, Patricia Field.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTION OF PATRICIA FIELD, WHO DRESSED YOU ALL?

Sarah Jessica Parker: I always say that I think Pat’s work on the show was as important as the storytelling in many ways. Pat's very good at telling a story with the fashion.

Kristin Davis: Pat taught us so much, and changed us. The show, and us personally. I learned a lot. I was a neophyte in all ways to do with fashion before the show.

Cynthia Nixon: I think Pat taught us all a lot of about mixing high and low fashion. If you have one article of clothing that’s very expensive, you don’t have to have the whole ensemble and look like a Christmas tree. And she taught us to wear the clothes, to not let them wear you. And to really remember that clothes are beautiful.

Kim Cattrall: I learned to just really be irreverent. You are usually supposed to have a specific brooch or a coat that must look in absolutely perfect taste. But Pat Field is like “F*ck that, man! Let’s make it yours, let’s have fun with it.”

Sarah Jessica Parker: “No rules.” Pat feels that fashion rules should be thrown out the window. I mean, by doing that you take great risks and people make fun of certain things, and the hits are enormous and the misses are comical.

But I’ve never said “no” to Pat. I would always try it on. I would stay in a fitting for 10, 11, 13 hours. I will try on everything on the rack, because I think Pat has a definite point of view. And even if something looks absurd to me, nothing is funnier than an absurd outfit at 3 or 4 in the morning after a 14-hour day on the set. Nothing is better than a fitting with Pat.

Kim Cattrall: You go into Pat’s playroom—as I call it—and it stinks like cigarettes and there’s pizza, take-out food, stuff everywhere. And she’s got a little bit of everything in there. She has designer stuff and like a rag-picker's assortment of jewelry from the ’30s and ’40s. It’s so much fun because you really feel like it’s dress-up time.

Sarah Jessica Parker: Really, this idea that I’m some kind of fashion icon is, in large part, due to Pat. She’s a remarkable person. And don’t be fooled by the red hair, she’s no Hostess Twinkie. She’s a really smart woman.

Kim Cattrall and Pat Field do Fashion Week, circa 2007.

AND WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOU’RE NOT WEARING CLOTHES?

Kim Cattrall: It’s all about lighting! [Laughs.] Listen, they have nothing invested in me getting up there and looking not my best. And these are the people who are my family, my friends, for seven years of my life and there is no other place that I could do those scenes. [Laughs.] And Michael was also very sensitive to what was appropriate for the movie and also for Samantha.

ANY THOUGHTS ABOUT CASHMERE MAFIA OR LIPSTICK JUNGLE?

Kim Cattrall: I haven’t seen them. I’m very flattered because they sound shockingly like a show that was near and dear to my heart. [Laughs.] But it’s not like somebody in the middle of nowhere came up with them. Darren Star put this whole fantasy together and so did Candace Bushnell from the inception, so I have no opinion about them going off and trying to tell more stories about women.

WHAT ABOUT THE IMPACT SEX AND THE CITY HAS HAD—ON WOMEN, ON SOCIETY IN GENERAL?

Kristin Davis: When we started, we didn’t think anyone would watch the show. Sarah and I would have these discussions, because we shot the entire first season without anything airing–usually you work while it airs and you can gauge people’s thoughts. But Sarah and I would have these talks about how the feminists are going to hate us. Because it was man-obsessed. It’s a feminist show, and we know that now. But we didn’t know it then.

Sarah Jessica Parker: I think part of the connection people feel to Carrie or the show has been due to the kind of writing, the storytelling and the characters that we created. And they live in a sort of hyper-real place… We kind of painted this portrait of this city, it’s not really New York City. I mean it is, but it’s sort of a hyper-real, the way we want to see New York. And I think that was very exciting for women.

Carrie’s flawed, and she was a wreck of a person for a while. But she’s very curious about people and has deep commitments for friendships, and I think those are interesting qualities to possess. But I don’t know if that makes her necessarily a role model, I just think it’s good writing and she's a great character.

It’s also very hard to talk about our legacy because it just seems really unattractive for me to assume that. It’s just not my nature for me to say, “Yes, we were responsible, we were part of this revolution.” Or “What is the legacy of the show?” I think it sounds braggy.

But on a lighter level, I'll see four women walking down the street together in lots of different countries and I recognize its provenance. And in New York City, I’ll see four girls, and there’s an intention to how they’re behaving with each other, and I recognize that we had something to do with that, for better or worse. Sometimes it’s unfortunately a woman showing a thong, and I think, “Well, that’s the bad part of our legacy.”

Cynthia Nixon: I feel like the big step forward and the big revelation was not, “Wow! Look how much sex these people are having!” It was that "Being single is not a pity party! Being single can be really fun!" Yes, it can have its heartaches, but there’s also freedom and elation.

That was the thing that we kept hearing from women on the street, often tearfully. Like... “Thank you for showing what being single is like and showing that it is like I could have actually chosen this!" That it was not just, that these women were left at the party without anybody to dance with.

Sarah Jessica Parker: I also think, or hope maybe, that the bigger byproduct is this idea about friendship. That’s more of what the show has been about. All the sex toys and the candid talk and the salty stuff, that’s funny and fun, but it’s cotton candy.

So if that was the only thing that people responded to about the show, I just don’t think it would have lasted. That’s just empty calories. It’s fun and funny and it’s titillating, but it’s the journey—dare I say—that people really, especially women, really connected to. But sure, all the dirty stuff was fun, too.

FINALLY, WHO ACTUALLY GETS SOME SEX IN THE MOVIE?

Kim Cattrall: Guess!

Here's to getting some!


See you on May 30th!

Get more Sex and the City treats at the movie's website, including a behind-the-scenes peek at the movie's fashions, hosted by Patricia Field! Glam-a-rama!

Comments

[junior]

Wow, that was a lot. Too bad you couldn't film it!

[Cosmo Guy]

Check out more on the movie at WWW.SEXANDTHECITYMOVIEBLOG.COM

[poetryman69]

such photogenic ladies

[Rachel]

Oh boy I AM PUMPED!!!

http://www.dhadm.com/content/sex-and-the-city-extended-trailer-may-30th/

That is a link to the trailer and some girl's opinion... SUPER PUMPED SUPER DUPER!

[grey]

THIS IS THE BEST INTERVIEW IVE EVER READ! you are so PERFECT with all of your questions &descriptions!!!!
i canNOT wait for this!

i would love for you to check out www.thegreylist.com

[blanca]

I can't wait to see the movie. The interviews was great.

[Brian]

i cant wait for the film. im especially a big fan of Miranda, just a bit disappointed that Steve is cheating on her in this movie.
I hope it gets resolved, not a standing issue for the next. I went through alot with their history together and ended so nicely in the series, i just dont want it ruined in the movie.

I hope that the movie isn't too disappointing because the series ended on such a great note...you are ALWAYS rroting for Carrie and Big.

[tim j smith]

this movie & other immoral movies just make me sick!! why does alot of people love to watch adultery & fornication so much, does anyone have moral standards anymore? There will be a price to pay for promoting SIN to others & especially children, God help all who is involved in this disgusting movie !!!

[Briana]

I think this is a very poor premise for a movie. Here you have four spinsters in there late forties, and there boring little lives. Mr Big, why would Chris Noth take such a B.S. role. Sara Jessica Parker is ugly, she has a horse head, not to mention poor acting skills. How could Mathew Broderick be married to such an ugly creature. I hope women will boycott this poor excuse for a movie.

[Princess]

I CAN'T FRIGGIN WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

12 MORE HOURS!!!!!!!!!

[Sandra]

re,I CAN'T FRIGGIN WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you a moron these 50 something actors haven't done any note worthy they are C actors at best and morons like you can't wait to see this crap. I feel sorry for anyone who has to be within 20 feet of you. Go back to school and get an education!!!

[Mike]

Due to the recent drama and excitement of the new Sex and the City release there have been many video trailers on the net. Here is one which is funny called "sixes and the city". It goes to show in this crazy excitement there are still some people who have funny bones.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFVJtxdmPPM

[Mike]

Due to the recent drama and excitement of the new Sex and the City release there have been many video trailers on the net. Here is one which is funny called "sixes and the city". It goes to show in this crazy excitement there are still some people who have funny bones.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFVJtxdmPPM

[local hero]

They will make a movie out of anything. This is really dumbed down. Four ugly over the hill women yeah i wanna see this one right!!!

[Sarah]

I was soooo disappointed with the movie - and you need to understand where I was coming from…I can probably recite word for word numerous episodes in their entirety - I have watched and rewatched all of the seasons multiple times, so to say I was psyched about seeing the film is an understatement….but what was with the michrophones throughout the majority of the movie???

I have seen junior high film productions that were more professional than this movie! I was appalled and totally distracted by the boom mikes bobbing along the top of each scene.

The movie itself struggled to capture both the humor and humility of the TV series, everyone tried just a little too hard - the script writers, the directors and, dare I say it, even the actors, although I thought Kim Catrall was as good as ever, and Kristen Davis put in a suprisingly good comedic performance.

Please, please get the camera work fixed before this is released on DVD, because I might be more inclined to enjoy the essence of the movie without the “bobbing” mikes! I am after all SATC’s #1 fan!

Had planned on going two or three times over this opening weekend to see “my” movie - now what am I going to do with myself??

[local hero]

re, now what am I going to do with myself??

Its called get a life. If your life is based on Sex In The City you have major issues. You sound mentally ill try medication. I here it really works! Now get a life!

[gretalargo]

yah, The whole premise of these women is exciting, but ultimately I'm left with a feeling of Cinderella syndrome. It's verging on provocative but lands in lame. It's not like you have to be a man-hater, actually the series raises some important gender questions. I just wish they were taken further as opposed to reinforcing, girl power = economic power due to crafted high-end shoe desire. We get it, women want to feel girly and ridiculous sometimes, just like guys want to feel buff and big-penised. The more interesting gender conversation lies elsewhere, in an actual dialogue where we can unleash without prejudice. That's the movie I want to see.

[dailyfreakshow]

hey!

i just wanted to share a vid i made with other SATC fans -

i do a daily video blog, and i made an entry about the opening weekend of the SATC movie, where i interviewed fans seeing the movie for the first time:

http://www.dailyfreakshow.tv/episodes/29-damiana-goes-to-sex-and-the-city-opening-weekend

btw, i'm the "lady" in the gray tweed coat! ;)

xoxo - michael

[Bishop]

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[We All Love Sex and The City]

Great blog, you can check out more on the girls at http://sexandthecityinfo.blogspot.com/

[janes]

I always imagined that it would never appear a better TV series than Friends;thanks God, I was wrong! I continue liking Friends very much, but Sex and the city has a bigger place in my heart.The story of Carrie,Samantha,Mirand and Charlotte is captivating,funny and very interesting...Catch all eps http://download-sex-and-the-city-episodes.edogo.com/ here...

[Scott]

This movie is just great.

Download Sex and the City movie:
http://filmfries.com/index.php/sex-and-the-city/