Sarah Jessica Parker's got a new attitude
Actress leaves Carrie behind with new role
LOS ANGELES -- Don't get her wrong. Sarah Jessica Parker still adores fashion. She still totters around on impossibly high heels. But she also has a new wardrobe consultant, and he's one tough taskmaster.
James Wilkie Broderick prefers slacks to skirts, baggy to body hugging. Of course, his muse also happens to be his mommy. James just turned 3, and Parker can't resist whipping out her cellphone to show off the little man who got her out of her strappy Manolo Blahnik sandals.
''My son has pretty strong feelings about what I wear and I think it has a lot to do with what you're going to do," said Parker, beaming about her boy. ''My son likes it when I wear pants because that means I'm on the ground with him, playing. . . . I still love beautiful clothes and getting dressed up. But I don't go out very much, to be honest."
Carrie Bradshaw, the bar-hopping, bed-tumbling character Parker made famous in ''Sex and the City," would no doubt blanch at Parker's current lifestyle. Then again, Parker is all about distancing herself from the role that won her a best actress Emmy and the adoration of fashionistas everywhere. Her latest could not be more different.
In ''The Family Stone," opening Friday, Parker plays against type to the point of uptightness. Even her hair is harsh: parted in the center and pulled back into an unflattering bun. Parker's Meredith Morton is severe, high-strung, and hard to like, much less love. She's the guest that the Stone family openly disdains even before the brother played by Dermot Mulroney proposes proposing marriage to her during the clan's annual postcard-perfect Christmas get-together.
''I'm always surprised when people think I'm like the guy they see in the movies," said Luke Wilson, who costars as the other brother. ''And then I thought she'd be just like Carrie Bradshaw. It just shows her range. She took a real chance playing a character who seems so unappealing. People may not expect it."
Regardless how fans react -- and she's admittedly anxious to find out -- the role is exactly what Parker says she wanted and needed post-''Sex and the City." Actually, it's almost a return to her roots. Until Steve Martin cast her as wacky, sexy Sandee (that's SanDeE*, as she memorably put it in the movie) in 1991's ''L.A. Story," Parker was more character actress than ingenue, the self-deprecating best friend rather than the central beauty. With her theater background -- she was a Broadway ''Annie" -- she has been accustomed from the start to ensemble acting. ''The Family Stone," also starring Claire Danes and Diane Keaton, among others, is certainly that.
''I'd been waiting a long time [for the right part and script] and had been counseled to be patient and not panic and not do what was comfortable and lucrative, which I would not be inclined to do anyway," Parker said. ''When I read this script, I felt this is exactly what I needed to do, as terrified as I was of it. . . . I've never known anyone like Meredith, and I certainly never played anybody like her."
Playing her was a relief. Although Parker, 40, calls herself a ''very happy person" during her time playing the quintessential single woman on ''Sex and the City," which ran from 1998 to 2004, she also recognized that at heart she was ''a journeyman actor in the old-fashioned sense."
''I missed playing other people," she said. ''I missed the challenges of a new role, new people, new circumstances. So it would have been foolish of me to walk away from what [executive producer] Michael Patrick King was doing so well to then do it in a less good way just because it paid well or was easy. I'm lucky that I have people around me who said, 'Don't. Just wait. Spend time with your son, be in New York, and see what happens.' "
What happened was ''The Family Stone," which generated enough good buzz that its opening was pushed back from November to December, in part to take advantage of the holiday motif. Writer/director Thomas Bezucha says that Parker was the second person cast after Keaton and that they drew the other cast members like magnets.
''I knew [Parker] had the chops and beyond," Bezucha said. Equally important, he added, is ''the built-in willingness of the audience to follow her on her journey, a built-in likability. . . . Meredith isn't a villain."
Still, she's far enough from Carrie Bradshaw that hard-core fans of the fast-talking, foul-mouthed sex columnist may be surprised, or disappointed -- although the New York girl they came to love does peek through during one drunken dance scene. They might feel likewise if they met Parker in person.
Known for an old-fashioned demeanor bordering on prudishness -- no nudity despite all her bra baring on ''Sex and the City," no hard partying despite her years as oft-rehabbed Robert Downey Jr.'s girlfriend, no cussing ever -- Parker is almost the antithesis of her best-known acting gig. In a pale pink dress that grazes her knees and offers only a hint of black bra, Parker appears almost demure, despite the Prada shoes. She's also soft-spoken, considerate, and careful to point out that she understands how lucky she has been. Long married to actor Matthew Broderick and mother to James, Parker uses the word ''grateful" often and earnestly.
''This is the happiest time of my life, no doubt, no question," said Parker, who at one point casually mentions how attractive she still finds her husband. ''I hope [my son] knows that without feeling suffocated. You just do the best you can do."
Parker comes from a sprawling Cincinnati family, and her desire for siblings for her son is evident. (''I loved being pregnant." ''Just that moment of birth, that's great." ''Oh, babies.") But she's also half-hoping he doesn't have the family show-biz bug. She says she can't imagine how child actors manage all the attention that comes their way today. At the least, she'd like her son to finish high school. Then his choices will be his own. Her own mother's rule concerned pierced ears: Parker could pierce hers when she was of voting age or developed breasts, whichever came first. ''I was voting first," she recalled with a fond laugh.
Parker's only rules concerning her career are to keep it varied, and keep to what she calls her moral compass. She says she wants to play parts that show she isn't afraid of risks. To that end, she recently wrapped ''Spinning Into Butter," a small-budget, race-relations drama set on a New England college campus and based on Rebecca Gilman's Broadway play of the same name. (Parker plays the dean of students.) Also coming is the more mainstream ''Failure to Launch," a romantic comedy costarring Matthew McConaughey, People magazine's latest ''Sexiest Man Alive." Parker also put in a day or two on ''Strangers With Candy," an as-yet unreleased movie co-written and starring her good friend Amy Sedaris. Hubby Broderick makes an appearance, too.
''She's a friend of mine, and she made us sign IOUs two years before it was even made: I hereby give my life to Amy Sedaris and will do whatever she asks of me," Parker said. ''And you have to keep your word."
If that's the case, Parker's fans can expect her to entertain them and also sometimes make them uncomfortable. Gap endorsements and namesake perfume (Lovely: Sarah Jessica Parker) aside, she has no intention of replaying ultra-hip, always hot Carrie Bradshaw. Count on it.
Lynda Gorov can be reached at lgorov@aol.com. 