Sarah Jessica Parker credited one person for why she never got upset with her character Carrie Bradshaw.
Parker played one of the main characters on Sex and the City for six seasons, in addition to three seasons of the show’s spin-off And Just Like That…, where audiences were consistently upset with her character’s decisions.
However, speaking on Today with Jenna & Friends on Monday, Parker was asked by the show’s co-hosts Jenna Bush Hager and Justin Sylvester if she ever wanted Bradshaw to make different decisions.
“We’ve watched Carrie date for so many years on our TV screens. Is there ever a moment where you’re like, ‘Girl, wake up!’ Are you ever yelling at your character to do something different?” Sylvester asked. The Hocus Pocus actor then curtly replied, “No.”
“It’s been such a sort of extraordinary experience,” she said. “I try to describe it as being contractually obligated to play somebody else — be somebody else — for about 27 years, to behave in ways which would be illegal if I, as a married person with children, ways in which I would behave in the city or with men.”
Parker continued, saying she credits the Sex and the City and And Just Like That… showrunner, Michael Patrick King, with not being mad at Bradshaw’s choices because she trusts the way he writes the character and for him to put together a good story.
“I feel like I have such implicit trust and faith in Michael Patrick and his extraordinary writing staff that, though decisions sometimes, I recognize, might be controversial or give people grief or have people have very big feelings, it’s incredibly fun to do,” she said. “So I really love it.”
With the lead-up to the season three premiere of And Just Like That… on May 29, one of the show’s other actors, Mario Cantone, recently revealed he insisted on filming more nude scenes after his season two sex scene was met with overwhelming fan praise.
The 65-year-old actor, who was first introduced as event planner Anthony Marentino in the original Sex and the City series, returned to the Max reboot alongside leads Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon.
In episode 10 of the most recent season, Anthony is seen in bed with his new romantic interest, Giuseppe (Sebastiano Pigazzi), a young Italian poet and new employee of Anthony’s Hot Fellas bakery. After the two get into a tiff over Anthony’s preferences in bed, he gets up to go to the bathroom. As he turns around to walk away, he shows off his bare naked bum.
Speaking about the positive fan response to his nudity during a recent interview on Davis’ Are You a Charlotte? podcast, Cantone recalled getting bombarded on social media with private messages after the episode’s release.
“My DMs blew up the next day,” he said, adding that before filming for the new season began, he told showrunner and executive producer King he wanted “more nudity.”
“I like being sexualized at 65 years old. It’s good,” Cantone joked.
