On tying with Angelina Jolie for the top spot on Forbes’ list of highest-earning actresses.
“Where do they get these numbers? I didn’t plot a future like this, although I know some people do. When Matthew and I started working, all we knew is that we wanted to be great actors. I don’t think I ever thought about money or that people would know my name. I loooove the work! When I was a little girl getting free lunches in Cincinnati, could I imagine being on a list in Forbes magazine?”
Parker acknowledges that her childhood left her with money anxieties and that she’s eager to capitalize on her earning power.
“I have a lot of responsibilities outside myself. I have a large family. I want to know I can always be helpful. I guess I worry.”
Her 8-year-old son, James Wilkie, wants to be an actor, and he’s eager to start auditioning.
“I don’t want him to do it until after he goes to college: But part of me thinks maybe it’s better if he knows the truth now about how hard it is to be a working actor. I don’t know that he grasps what it took to get us here.”
On the difficulty of balancing career and motherhood.
“We’ve had two occasions recently where both Matthew and I were working, and it was so hard on the kids. Especially James Wilkie, because he can really articulate how he feels about our absence. On the other hand, there are big chunks of time when we’re home a lot more than conventionally working parents. So you hope to make up for it.”
On fraternal twins Loretta and Tabitha.
“They’re talking, they’re running, they need me. Loretta is deeply inquisitive: ‘Do you see that, do you hear that, Mama?’ She constantly checks that we are connecting with her.” Her sister is the family princess: “Tabitha does not give; she receives.”
Babysitters? Yes. Live-in help? Not for them.
“We love closing the door and having the only people in the house be our three children and us. It’s such a good feeling to know that we’re competent and capable and that it’s private."
Baseball, Parmesan cheese, color (“Matthew’s mother was a painter, and he taught me to love colors and break all the rules”). She also says that “he’s given me a little cynicism,” noting that she used to take the world at face value but that her husband is more skeptical. “I’m less Pollyanna now. That’s probably healthy.” For her part, Parker has shared her love of ballet, and, she says, “I make him [get out and] do things. We go to the theater and we travel because I plan it.”
Any chance for a third Sex and the City movie?
“There is. I know what the story is. It’s a small story, but I think it should be told. The question is, what’s the right time to tell it?”
What she likes to shop for.
“When I travel, I almost never go shopping for clothes. I always go to a hardware store. Because in Europe and Asia, the hardware stores have housewares—it’s where everyone gets their dishtowels and aprons, egg spoons, timers, butcher block. That’s the special stuff you can’t get at home, and it’s the cheap stuff. “
On someday, perhaps, playing the villain.
“I would like to play someone who maybe isn’t decent, but I haven’t found a part yet that’s right. There aren’t a lot of villainous, complicated women thrown nicely into a good script. I don’t want to say yes just because it’s different.
My biggest challenge is not to say yes to things that come to me because it’s another romantic comedy about a woman who lives in New York and loves fashion and runs around hailing cabs. I can do that, it’s familiar, but the odds that it will be as well-written as Carrie Bradshaw was are low, in my opinion. But I also love to work. I try to look at the whole picture.”
On saying no to nude scenes.
“When I did Sex and the City, I told Darren [series creator Darren Star], ‘I’m just not comfortable with it. It’s not some righteous thing, I’m thrilled if other people do it.’ He said, ‘Great, no problem.’ And on another movie, it came up and I said no and they said fine. There might have been [a role] I lost because of it, but I don’t think so—I think people would have said, ‘Would you reconsider?’ Now I’m so old, I think I should have done it when I was young.”
On the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York.
“I’m thrilled. I’m especially happy that the Empire State can hold its head high on this issue.”
Courtesy of Parade
