Sarah Jessica Parker is the ultimate New Yorker. Andy Cohen says walking around with her is like “walking around with the Empire State Building.” SJP, as Parker is affectionately known to her fans, is best known for playing the iconic Carrie Bradshaw on HBO’s “Sex and The City” and its revival “And Just Like That,” currently in its third season. But more than men or fashion, the show is about friendship, community, and what it means to show up for one another. And in this interview with “The Best People,” she tells Nicolle Wallace that this spirit of care is one we could use a little more of in today’s political climate.
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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
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Sarah Jessica Parker: I think there are so many ways to work toward a more civil society than doing it. Sometimes I’ll say when people are like, you’ve got to speak up on social media. I was like, FDR was elected without social media.
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Nicolle Wallace: Hi, everyone. Welcome to “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace.” One of the best and most iconic characters ever created is Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex and the City” and now of course from, “And Just Like that,” and two movies in between. The actress behind Carrie Bradshaw is, of course, Sarah Jessica Parker, a beloved New Yorker, a mom, a wife, an actor, a lover of books and libraries and politics and journalism. We talk about all of it. This is “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace” and this is Sarah Jessica Parker.
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Thank you so much for being here.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Oh, my gosh. Thank you for having me. I’m going to try very hard to be that person you’ve described.
Nicolle Wallace: I’m a big “And Just Like That” fan. I got to watch the news season and I asked Richard Plepler about Carrie and why she endures. And he said that she endures because of you and because it’s of story about connection. And I feel like what “Sex and the City” and what Richard said was so important that it was about New York and it was about Carrie, but it was about you pick up the phone and on the other end they’re always there.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: Like they never can’t find one of them.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah. Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And that’s the fantasy. That’s the fiction —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — that everyone latches onto.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I want to be in the diner with my three best friends —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — telling them anything and everything.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah. Like the really intimate things. Yeah. I think it was really so clever of Darren Star, initially, to see, to understand from Candace’s book, which was a collection of all of her columns from “The Observer,” to recognize that there was something interesting about women talking intimately to one another and needing each other and testing, you know, friendships, you know, you mess up and you come back and you fall short and you betray. You know, you go to the guy, then you come back, you’re like, you know. And that’s like how those long friendships go.
And I was thinking like, during COVID, like what did we watch? We were watching Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart and introduced those to my daughters. And we were feeling all sorts of nostalgia about it. It’s actually why we started doing “Just Like That” is during COVID I called Michael in April of 2020. And we’d been back and forth about the show and movie and not, and yes and no. And I just said, I feel like we should be talking about the show. They’re reaching for these things that make them feel good, even as they are in their own homes. So it’s a very interesting relationship that people are sort of cultivating with art and stories.
And we started talking about that and I was like, I think we can do it. I can do it. I live in New York, you live in Los Angeles and we can do this and we can talk about it. And he said on the phone, one day I was walking back and forth on our deck. And he said, what about the show? And I was like, well, I was too afraid to say it because I thought it felt greedy. Like, haven’t you been given so much already with her and he was like, no, I think that’s what we should be talking about. But it was because we were home trying to connect, we couldn’t be with our friends. So we were trying to make it feel like we were with our friends.
And gosh, everybody was missing each other, like so much so —
Nicolle Wallace: So much.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — that you didn’t realize how reliant you were on the relationships outside your family, which were that’s a very specific kind relationship. And I always said like, COVID creating relationships with children that you shouldn’t, like you weren’t meant to have those. I realized —
Nicolle Wallace: Totally.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — I was like, oh, their home all day, my son had to come home. He was a semester away for his junior year of high school and he had to come home, which I’m sure was hugely disappointing for him. And we are all together all day long. That means, not three meals a day. It means seven meals a day, you know?
Nicolle Wallace: Oh, I know.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And —
Nicolle Wallace: Cooked by us.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yes, me.
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And in our house, I was the grocery store person.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: But I was like, we are living in ways that you actually were never meant to be here because we’re not a working farm and it’s not 19 whatever in this part of the country. We weren’t meant to be together all day long. And I’m seeing things about you and you are seeing things about me.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I mean, I remember at one point just like there, I said, every time I had to fix an appliance, I was like, please somebody take a picture of me. I never want my picture taken. I don’t want selfies. I don’t want any memories. It’s all my husband and the kids. I take the pictures.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: But I’d be inside a dishwasher. I re-hung doors. I fixed the dryer and I was like, where is everybody? But we were missing our friends.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: We were missing this —
Nicolle Wallace: So much.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — escape that like the little quick, I’ll meet you on the stoop. I’ll meet you down the street. Just one little —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — just a little like whatever, tea, wine —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — a margarita, whatever it was, it’s a connection. And so, when it was at that point that Michael and I were like, yeah, let’s do this again because this is what the show was based on, was connection.
Nicolle Wallace: I’m sure people come up to you all the time. I’ve seen your friends talk about walking around. I think Andy Cohen is walking around, to you is like walking around with the Empire State building. I mean, “Sex and the City” is not just sort of cross politics. It’s cross culture. I mean, Carrie Bradshaw is an international character that you play. Is there any part of your brain that like when a crowd walks up to you, is like they’re walking up to the character they know not the person that I am all the other moments?
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yes. I mean, I think that they’ll often say, hey Carrie. They’ll call me Carrie and that’s all right too. I mean, there’s such good will, and it’s been such an extraordinary, you know, you could not have planned for this particular role and the time spent doing it to come along. Like it just is so unique in so many ways. So, it’s generally really nice and I do know that people confuse me and her and it makes total sense and I’ve got no resentment or bitterness about it because it’s afforded me through so much that has come from the experience. I mean, it’s just a bounty of extraordinary things. So, as Plepler, our mutual friend —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — used to always say to me, it’s the gang of 10 million, which was our initial audience, which is something. It’s a pretty big group. And that is, at the time, those were primarily women. And that means that inside that group of, that gang of 10 million women are all sorts of women who have a lot of feelings, who were raised in a variety of ways, ways that I’ll never know, understand, I’ll never hear, I’ll never learn. And I try to be thoughtful about the relationship that I have with other people. If anybody is interested in my opinion, it’s in large part because I’ve played this character for a long time and she allowed me to create a relationship with a large group of people.
So when I talk about things that are important, I want to be thoughtful about it because I don’t want to insult them. I really want to be, try to connect with people. When I talked about the reasons that I voted for the Harris-Walz ticket, what mattered to me were things that I think actually affect all those women who allowed me in their home, whether it’s science and the way in which their mammograms are now looked at, or schools, and the way that I either they were raised or can send theirs, or there is a school or they teach in a public school. And the way I look at it is that it affords opportunities, but I feel I want to be thoughtful in the ways in which I am wielding this potential currency.
Nicolle Wallace: The things that I text you about are news, right?
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: News and politics.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: The things that —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Every now and then we text about family.
Nicolle Wallace: Kids.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah, kids.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah, babies.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: But I found a handful of journalists, and then when I told this story, I found more. That you are a secret supporter and champion of journalists. That you will use your contacts and your network to find an e-mail address for someone who wrote a beautiful piece or had an incredible piece of reporting. And it extends to newspapers and investigative journalism and broadcast. And so, above everything else you’re a news junkie.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I am. I think I’m one of millions and millions of people who either were brought up with news as a centerpiece of our lives. As young children, the news played a huge role in our dinner conversation like it was very seriously tended to. And we grew up, we didn’t have a television for many, many years in my home, but my parents were early listeners to NPR. So when we came home from school or ballet class, we were very familiar with the theme for “All Things Considered” —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — like we knew it. It was almost unpleasant how well we knew it, but it was a touchstone in our home. And my parents, long before I was born, were political people. They were involved in local city, state, federal elections. And my mom was an educator. My father, raised me primarily, was many things, but ultimately he was a truck driver, and they were just involved. And it was assumed that we would be, and in our case, we were dragged to protests. We wore black arm bands to school for political prisoners. We picketed in front of buildings. We picketed in front of government buildings. We protested the Vietnam War.
So being a news junkie, I think just simply it was a part of my life to be aware, but that it was the expectation of our parents that we were. And the world has changed so radically since then. I think now, and I’m older than you, but I’m going to reckon that you thought those were simpler times, that the way we consumed news —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — the way we talked with our neighbors about news and we all knew our neighbors. And my mom would say, this is Mrs. so and so, she voted for Nixon, but we would be talking to her. We would knock on her door. We would have conversations. She might send her child to the parochial school, but we were still in it, and I don’t know how to not be in it. It’s just a very different way of experiencing it today and it’s just so much more fraud.
Nicolle Wallace: Why do you think it is?
Sarah Jessica Parker: I’m afraid that one of the reasons is that it turned out we didn’t really like each other. We actually didn’t like our fellow citizens. And for me, that is kind of the fundamental problem is that everybody looks at each other now with suspicion, concern, hurt, anger, in advance of knowing anything. You get on a plane and people are looking at each other. Well, they look like this, they must have voted this way. And you’re afraid of conversations.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: If you bump into somebody now with your bag, there’s all these little infractions that you fear are going to turn into a political conversation.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: So that’s a very simple response.
Nicolle Wallace: No, I mean, look, this is you, right? You went like right to the marrow of my bones. Because I mean, look, what haunts me is something you said that I’m afraid we don’t like each other. I had to finally quit social media because I wanted to tell everyone if you knew me, you wouldn’t hate me this much. How can you say that? If you came to dinner, you would definitely not think what you just wrote about me. I could win you over.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I could show you that we both love the Mets so much that you wouldn’t care.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And I had to quit because it became so exhausting to want to change their mind and win them over, but I couldn’t accept that we don’t like each other that much.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I don’t like social media for the same reason because it doesn’t allow for any real conversation. And when you say it touches me to my marrow, like that’s a big deal that that’s where we’re feeling all of this. And I don’t think because we’re hysterical and things are actually inconsequential. I think the reason that people are feeling this kind of agony, this kind of acute agitation is because we don’t see a way out of it.
And if I tell you that I have great concerns about social security, someone might say to me, what do you care? You’re wealthy, you have success, you have a home. You’re not going to be reliant upon it. And I say to them, but there are people in my life who are deeply tied to that. I’m not even going to call it an entitlement, to the money they have invested for their entire working lives. We’re at a point where we can’t actually talk about the facts of what’s happening. So all of this stuff hurts because it feels as if we can’t have the conversations even with our elected officials.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Like in the old days, we’d have these conversations in the House, in the Senate.
Nicolle Wallace: Right. Right. Right.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And so, I think all this stuff that’s hurting the marrow, and I’m sure people who disagree with me feel it in their marrow because they are getting their news from a place that is telling them all is okay, we’re just getting rid of fraudsters. And I say, but I know for sure, my friend, Bill, is not a fraudster, but if he can’t get someone on the line and his check is late, it is very consequential to him.
Nicolle Wallace: I still think that it will hurt everybody to their core to think that there’s someone in our government who thinks that people are indifferent to whether or not the check comes. I mean, that should hurt everyone. And I do still think there are lines you can cross that’ll hurt everyone. I mean, I think libraries are one of them. I think everybody —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Don’t get to libraries. I can barely even say the word without bursting into tears.
Nicolle Wallace: But I think there are still things that are sacred. And again, it isn’t an entitlement. It is something that people paid into. And it’s a matter of fairness, right?
Sarah Jessica Parker: I’ve been paid into it since I was 8 years old.
Nicolle Wallace: Correct. It’s a matter of simple fairness. And I still have this diluted optimism maybe that the things that are fair are fair, and they’re not partisan anymore.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah. I mean, I arrive at that every now and then. I really do. Sometimes I have these fantasies when I’m upset about something I’ve read about, and we can just hang our hat on libraries for instance. I’m not a fan of science fiction. I don’t ever reach for that book.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I just —
Nicolle Wallace: It doesn’t speak to me either.
Sarah Jessica Parker: It doesn’t speak to me, but I’ll stay in my kitchen when I’m listening to something or I’ve read something and I’m very upset and very worried about millions and millions of people. And then I think what if we are in this agitated cycle in the washing machine, and it really is almost like science fiction and we will come out of it. The wash that I’m talking about, the cycle that I’m talking about is that somehow something radical happens that shakes us in a way that, I don’t know, we’re clear of some kind of crazy clout because otherwise, how will we wake up every day?
If we don’t believe in a correction where people feel heard, where differences can exist again and the way they used to and it’s not that those times were great in other ways. Those times were not great in other ways. But there was a kind of civility, there was a kind of elegance to our differences. There was a kind of nobility to office. There was a grace. There was a love for diplomacy. We understood government in a different way. I think we used to appreciate civics more, and I feel like all of that has gone and it’s really just really angry words.
So, this thing you kind of are going to hold onto, I have that. I think we all have to because otherwise, you mean it’s going to get worse? You mean —
Nicolle Wallace: What does that look like?
Sarah Jessica Parker: — it will never be better than this? We’re going to get to a place where we’re in some kind of dystopia where we don’t have libraries, where our children don’t have access to information and books, and a public school system that can take care of them and in support a history contest. And my mother and her friends can get their social security check, not because I couldn’t help them, but because it’s a point of pride, you know, because she worked for it.
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Nicolle Wallace: We’re going to take a quick break here. When we come back more with my friends, Sarah Jessica Parker. We’ll be back in a moment.
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Nicolle Wallace: I mean, I met you when I was still a Republican.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: That long ago.
Sarah Jessica Parker: You just had a book out. Do you remember?
Nicolle Wallace: I had written “18 Acres,” my first novel.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And so my —
Sarah Jessica Parker: I remember that so well.
Nicolle Wallace: — fiction was about the first female president because I was sort of scarred and charred by the twin experiences of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in ‘08. And I thought that gender trumped partisanship then, and so like the thing that informs me to go write three books is that it was harder to be a woman than a Democrat or a Republican. I thought that what Hillary went through was so singular to being a woman. I thought there was a certain indignity to female politicians that was universal.
How dumb am I, right, because on a partisan spectrum, Palin sort of puts in motion this boiling rage at elites and an elitism that had taken over in the eyes of the voters, the Republican Party. I mean, how much of a shift have you noted? And you’re very involved sort of activism.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I think when I watched the Democratic National Convention, I was really excited about, I guess they say our bench, like I really was. It took me a really long time after the election to listen to anything for a while. When I started listening again to things, I was struck by how much people were screaming about what the Democrats should do and what they couldn’t do and how frustrated people are, who are allies with them. But then I would be saying back to the radio or whomever, but what do you want them to do? I feel like it’s very hard, like on immigration. We can talk about that forever and how Democrats don’t want to. If they say we are concerned about this kind of idea, therefore they are for criminals roaming our streets and making people feel unsafe.
So it’s very hard, I think, for us to believe that somebody can punch through, who can inspire people, who you can believe in, who has the courage to risk losing election or being primaried or not being progressive enough or not being as centrist enough. So I feel the complexity and the challenge of the time, but that doesn’t make me feel better about the future, because I don’t know how to tell them what to do. I can only tell them what I feel as a citizen and what’s important for me, the things I feel are important for a lot of people, not just me.
The things that I care about have nothing to do with me in a lot of ways. I will always be able to buy a book. I will always be able to find a school to educate my children. So the things that I’m worried about are not about me. They’re about what I grew up, my free lunch, all my free access to arts and education, all my free access to information in libraries, a cool place in the summer, we didn’t have air conditioning, and a warm place in the winter. All the great programs that used to exist, that were federally and state funded, my mom grabbed all of it.
Who’s going to take care of that? Who has the courage? Who has the charisma? Who’s going to dazzle us? I don’t know. I know we’ve got such talent, but is our world, who can punch through, with everybody having their thing and their thing and their little place where they get their news. It’s really different. Another thing I’ve been thinking about unrelated, who is going to be interested in foreign service?
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Like where is that group? My daughters always say to me, remind me what you would’ve done if you weren’t an actor. I was like, I would’ve wanted to be in foreign service. I would’ve wanted to like send me to that embassy.
Nicolle Wallace: I read about the Georgetown school —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Georgetown, yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — but my parents were like, you will go to a UC school if you get in because it’s $700. That’s how old I am.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: But I read about the Georgetown School Foreign Service.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And that was all that I ever wanted to be, but yeah. So you’re one of the kids that goes there and then because of the way an election turns on one percentage point, your whole life’s work gets pulled out from under you.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah. What’s happened to diplomacy has been, for me, it’s been really heartbreaking because I love the idea of the ways in which we can export our thoughts and feelings, our culture, our ideas, our history of diplomacy, like the things that we’ve done as Americans in the world, in the big world, and we’re just this baby nation. We’re just like a little baby. And somehow we got invited, like someone trusted it enough. We earned enough street credit that someone said, no, you can be a trusted partner.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: We know you’re young. We’re the upperclassmen, but we will teach you.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And that came in large part because the way in which we chose to, and not always correctly, but we learned and we arrived, but I don’t know of a lot of people who were like really interested. Look what happened to our ambassadors.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah. No, I mean, look, you think about the first Trump presidency and some of the people that we would’ve never known, Marie Yovanovitch, right, the ambassador who was told to leave in the middle of the night because her life was on the line. It was a call she got from the United States State Department.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I think about her.
Nicolle Wallace: I think about her. I think about Fiona Hill.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, went in to work for a Republican administration because of her expertise.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And then we’re starting, you know, if that was the line, we’re starting in such a different place now.
Sarah Jessica Parker: At a deficit we’re already —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah, deficit —
Sarah Jessica Parker: At a deficit.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Those are the kinds of deficits I worry about as well.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah. But then I think —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Not just the financial ones.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, back to my delusion, right. I think that our kids will create the next NATO. They will eradicate measles a second time. They will walk into countries for the first time in years. Like, hi, we haven’t had an embassy here for —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — like, right. Because —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — I can’t, as a mother, think that those deficits are forever.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Your son and my daughters are pretty close in age and I think they’re the same generation.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And my daughters and your son, there is a little bit of like a buoyancy about them —
Nicolle Wallace: Yes.
Sarah Jessica Parker: that I find is, I don’t know if you find this with your son, but my daughter’s things are not as personal. It’s like a weird thing. They’re not as wounded so quickly.
Nicolle Wallace: You can’t get to the marrow as quickly for better and for worse.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Right.
Nicolle Wallace: My son is a savvier consumer, like where a tweet with like literally put me in a tail spin, I would cancel dinner and try to figure out how to win over some lunatic who like was probably Russian in hindsight.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Right.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean, and I think it cuts both ways, right. But there is a savviness —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — that I find both instructive and hopeful, but I don’t know. Maybe I’m nuts. Maybe it’s fueling my delusion that I’m really doing fine.
Sarah Jessica Parker: No, I really feel it, but I do think that they are savvy, and so yeah. So our children, hopefully, will, yes, look at government differently. That’s one last thing that it really confuses me is about this sort of, gosh, I mean, government is so bad. It’s like the way it is now as if, I never read comic books, but it feels like what is projected onto the idea of government assistance, government playing a role, to me used to be very, what’s that word? It was very beneficent.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And now it’s evil. It’s an interloper.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s been dehumanized.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And it used to be this benevolent safety net that didn’t intrude, but it was there —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — to catch you. It was a piece of a civil society. Because I think about how do we get here. And certainly, as someone who used to be on the other side, how did we get to this point? But I worked in the government at a point when, after 9/11, it was the government that protected us, especially on the national security side, a high watermark. So, it happened quickly because that was —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — what, 24 years ago —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — when the government was the answer. The government was the reason —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — you could get back on air, we told people, the week after 9/11, get back on airplanes, the government will protect you. Get back on the subway and if you see something, say something.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: Right? That was that you get back on the subway.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: We told people to go shopping, the economy would be fine.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And the government would back them.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: And then at the end of my time in the party, the government will rescue, in 2008 with soon-to-be President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the table, the government will rescue the economy.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: So those are the eight years that I’m a Republican —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — in government.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah. And I want to keep in mind that when September 11th happened, it wasn’t as if the entire country was in support of our president at the time.
Nicolle Wallace: Oh, I was there.
Sarah Jessica Parker: It was a very —
Nicolle Wallace: Half and half.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yes. I mean that was not a good relationship for a lot of Americans, but we had a mutual interest, which was, what do we do for each other now? And New York was a really perfect example of that. And I’m sure people at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania all felt that same idea and need is to like, what do we do for each other now? And I remember Matthew was doing “The Producers” at the time and my husband was born and raised in New York City downtown. He’s never lived north of where we live now, which is very far south. And we, at the time, we lived around the corner from a firehouse that we knew very, very, very well, and we walked past them every single day. And they had been through some really awful stuff in their careers.
And so, we were downtown, very far downtown when that happened and we saw some really awful things, and “The Producer” shut down, Broadway shut down, and they went back the next day. And I will just say this about my husband is that he’s, well, you know him, he’s kind of quiet, but he’s not. And he’s not someone who is going to share a lot of like his interior, emotional life. And they went back. I think they opened again on Thursday night of that week, so September 13th maybe. And they all stood up. I’m like going to cry saying this, but they all stood up and they sang, “God Bless America.” And my husband was weeping. And I will not forget him sitting on our bed saying how could this be. How could this be? You know, because this is a city that he loves, and those firemen were gone. And he wasn’t alone at all. Like he wasn’t singular at all. We all felt something. So, it was so unimaginable, but we had like the thing that happened with the fellow that you were working for and with and alongside, was that we put all that aside. And we decided that thing that happens, like when an audience walks into a theater and they all decide they’re going to be a bad audience. I’m like, how did it happen? Like, how did you decide that in advance or they’re great.
We all decided without discussing it with each other, we were going to be good for each other. And we were going to figure out a way to support businesses in downtown New York, to support our neighbors, to support our first responders, whatever it took. But that felt like there was a beginning and a middle and an end. Like this happened, what do we do? How do we do it? Now, let’s do it. But this feels like it has no middle or end. The abstract solution to this is so big.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: That it’s not like–
Nicolle Wallace: We’re talking about science fiction —
Sarah Jessica Parker: that time.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Because we knew what we had to do. You guys told us, our local elected officials told us, our neighbors told us, our friends told us, our colleagues told us, our businesses told us. This is like duke it out. Duke it out. I just, I don’t know. I think that’s why it feels so amorphous, except that they are things that concern me for others.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And that’s the part that’s like, you’d be fine. It’s not going to affect you.
Nicolle Wallace: I hate that.
Sarah Jessica Parker: But it does here.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Because I’ve had all that. I got those things. I am here standing. I get to speak to you because of all that stuff, all of the, what do you call it? The scaffolding that government offered and it was good. And everybody I knew who got it was true and good. We weren’t con artists, we weren’t fraudsters. We just wanted to get as much out of our lives as we could so that we could have more to offer. I’ve never met somebody who didn’t have a job who didn’t want one, never. I’ve never met someone who lost their job for 20 minutes and was like, not panicked about a host of things.
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Nicolle Wallace: My conversation with Sarah Jessica Parker continues right after a quick break. Stay right here.
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Sarah Jessica Parker: It is a very strange phenomenon to feel worried about so many things and elections have consequences, like you vote or you don’t vote. And we didn’t vote in enough numbers where it mattered. And that’s just plain and simple. We’ve won a bunch and we’ve lost a bunch. And that’s just the ugly truth. It’s the beauty of living in a democracy. You know, but like the fact that I even have to say that, that I have to clarify that I’m not angry, even though it’s okay for other people to be angry.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Or that someone will say to me, shut up and act, that I can’t or others can’t have an opinion. It’s so interesting that like so many people on the other side, they seem to want anyone who disagrees to shut up. It’s the weirdest thing. It’s so off kilter that like who can talk and who can’t? Who’s told to shut up and who isn’t? I’m just a citizen.
Nicolle Wallace: Do you feel that? Do you feel like you can’t talk or you shouldn’t talk?
Sarah Jessica Parker: Oh, yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: Or if you a younger point in your career, you wouldn’t talk?
Sarah Jessica Parker: I think I would always talk to the degree that I’m comfortable speaking. I often don’t talk on social media because, A, I don’t think it’s a place that’s deserving of any real complicated conversation. I’m not interested in like quick little snippets when it’s dealing with conflict or even election sometimes. I really was so thoughtful about how I wanted to talk about the election because I think it’s turn into a distraction from a campaign. It turns into fodder it’s misunderstood and you have no control over it. And I think there are so many ways to work toward a more civil society than doing it. Like sometimes I’ll say when people are like, you’ve got to speak up on social media. I was like, FDR was elected without social media. Like many things happened.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Right and left, Republicans and Democrat for many, many, many, many years. Many generations were elected without someone having to say something on Instagram. And I think we can be a lot more productive sometimes when we’re not doing that. And people will disagree with that. They’ll say be vocal, be vocal, and I am vocal. I’m vocal in the ways that I feel comfortable being vocal informed. So I’m not going to talk about stuff that I don’t feel educated on. I’m not going to jump in on really complex areas that I feel are deserving of far more thought consideration, nuance, which I know no one’s interested in. And I just feel like I want to be helpful. I don’t want to hurt something that matters to me.
Nicolle Wallace: What is the best way that you’ve sort of come up with to, to get through the moment?
Sarah Jessica Parker: I listen to a lot of people. I try to read a lot. I try to really understand like what is scary and what is dangerous. Like what’s the difference between something being said and the reality of it happening because that’s the other thing too. It feels a little bit like, I’m not sure if this is going to really happen. So, especially, in the beginning when I wasn’t reading and I was just getting my news from, well, mostly my husband who’s much braver than me. He’s just kind of puts his head down and looks at it and he reads a lot of editorials.
So he’ll say, you know, Paul Krugman says we should or shouldn’t worry. You know, like that was back in the day like in November 12th onward. But I think after learning and reading as much as I can, the thing that I feel is most helpful to me, and this is not some panacea or answer for everybody is, okay, what can I do that feels really real? Like I will support our libraries.
It’s not just a book that we’re talking about. It’s not just somebody going in and being able to borrow a book, it’s so much more, because the things that we tend to be chasing that I think are laws and issues that affect everybody. I don’t care who you voted for. I want women in this country to have access to healthcare. Like, it matters to me. Why? I don’t know. I can’t tell you, but I want them to have their mammograms. I get to do that every year.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: And I have no problem doing it. I pick up the phone and I call and I go and they make time and they’re nice and they remember me and that’s the way it used to be, like the old ideas of how do we keep each other safe, smart, informed, educated, warm, healthy —
Nicolle Wallace: Healthy. Yeah. Another thing that Richard said about you is, and I think everything that’s ever been written about you and anyone that’s ever worked with you has talked about your work ethic. When she’s done with this, she’ll do that. That you do everything at once. Do you? I think all working mothers do.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I talked to a working mother this morning and I said, do working mother mentality is like, oh, my arm fell off. I’ll deal with that the day after tomorrow when I have an open —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Exactly.
Nicolle Wallace: — like 45 minutes.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Exactly. Yeah. Just someone (inaudible).
Nicolle Wallace: Drop off, right.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I’ll put in my (inaudible).
Nicolle Wallace: Just give me Band-Aid.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Exactly.
Nicolle Wallace: And then like, you know, I’ve got 40 minutes —
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: — I think after drop off and before my parent-teacher conference.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Yeah.
Nicolle Wallace: I mean like, what is the best thing that you’re like waiting to do?
Sarah Jessica Parker: Probably travel more —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — you know. We’re just talking this morning. There are times that other countries are at their best. And right now, with my children in school, I can’t go where I would want to go in September.
Nicolle Wallace: Right. Because they’re so busy.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I know.
Nicolle Wallace: My son is always busy.
Sarah Jessica Parker: They’re busy. And their school schedules, I want to be with them.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I don’t want to go to this place that I’m excited to go to in September because they’ll need me at the top of the school year. I know it. So I think time allows for me, in my case, travel and just, I think for so long you just work so hard and you just work every day for years and years and years. And you’re a parent or you’re sibling or you’re a family member that’s caring for somebody else. And you don’t imagine days where you don’t know what to do. Like you don’t imagine days where you’re like what should I do today?
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Sarah Jessica Parker: What should I do today?
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Because that’s just not been no fault but my own.
Nicolle Wallace: Right.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Like the way I’ve functioned. And I do the laundry. I love doing the laundry. I love, you know, house work. I love it. And I think because when I grew up, it was just crazy all the time. And my mom is so good —
Nicolle Wallace: There’s no podcast where you fold the laundry.
Sarah Jessica Parker: My mom is famously good at laundry. So I learned. But just like the idea of leisure is —
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: — pretty amazing to think about.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I’m not overly eager for it because I don’t want it until I know that my children are pursuing their next stage of life in their academic careers. What I’m saying is when they go to college, I can think about traveling in September.
Nicolle Wallace: When you’re an empty nester. Is there anything I didn’t ask that’s on your mind?
Sarah Jessica Parker: Oh, my gosh. The only other thing I want to say is that I always just believed in us, like I didn’t know any differently. And you and I come from different backgrounds, hardworking. Like you said, your parents were like, this is where you’re going to go to school. This is what we can pay. This is what you’ll do. And you were like, great. I’ll take what is the best opportunity and make the most of it, and you did.
And that is a very American story. And a lot of us did and I know people in this room did. And that’s what I know and that’s what I believe. And we’ve talked a lot today about like disappointment and fear and worry and some angst. But I say this and we go on, like, you are still getting on the air every day and now you’re going to do a podcast because it matters enough to keep talking about it. So I would only say that this is a testament to the belief, even if we don’t know how we’re going to get there to a place where we are better to each other again.
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you so much.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Thank you so, so much.
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you so much. So generous with your time.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Awesome. My pleasure.
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Sarah Jessica Parker: The easiest yes ever.
Nicolle Wallace: Thank you.
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