Sarah Jessica Parker Once Felt Ashamed Doing This Rom-Com With Pierce Brosnan
Sarah Jessica Parker is no stranger to starring in romantic comedies. Despite her experience, however, the veteran confided that she could still get jitters every once in a while when doing a feature. This 2011 comedy had the actor especially rattled.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan starred in ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’
I Don’t Know How She Does It was a 2011 rom-com where Parker played an overworked mother and wife working a high-paying job. Brosnan starred opposite of her in the feature playing a successful businessman and a potential love interest. In an interview with Movie Fanatic, Parker revealed there was a lot that attracted her to the project.
“I think specifically, there’s a few themes in the movie,” she said. “The fact they were very grown up in a way because they were about people who are really in the thick of their lives. They’re not superheroes. They’re not heroic in any way. They’re not terrifically wealthy. They’re not on the margins. So, they’re telling a sort of everyman’s story to see what it is to be a working parent outside the home in this particular time.”
But the movie also gave her some very familiar feelings she was still grappling with in the film industry. Despite being a film star, Parker confided that she hasn’t really gotten used to the intense atmosphere and expectations of a movie set. Parker even feels some insecurities that might be expected from a first-time actor.
“By Wednesday of the first week on I Don’t Know How She Does It, I was sobbing, I was apologizing. I was feeling so awful and ashamed, like I had let the director down,” Parker once told Vogue. “If only they would not tell me when the camera was running, I would be OK. I’m like that two weeks into every movie.”
But this was when her co-star Brosnan came in handy, as he felt similar jitters.
“But the beauty of nerves is that you can always find a comrade in it. When Pierce came, he was a nervous wreck! Of course, by then I was really relaxed, but I was so comforted by it,” she remembered.
‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’ isn’t the only movie Sarah Jessica Parker did with Pierce Brosnan
Parker and Brosnan were already familiar with each other years before I Don’t Know How She Does It. The two did the 1996 Tim Burton movie Mars Attacks!. As the title suggests, it was a dark comedy about a group of aliens who attempt to invade Earth. Parker didn’t even need to audition for the film. Burton asked her to do the feature on a whim.
But Mars Attacks! didn’t really present the opportunity for Parker to work with Brosnan that closely. So, in a way, I Don’t Know How She Does It was her first time really getting to know the James Bond star. She walked away with a more than pleasant impression of Brosnan, who was described as a joy to be around.
“One could project a lot onto him prior to actually meeting him. I had worked with him before on Mars Attacks, but we didn’t get to have this kind of working experience then. It was much more brief. He was James Bond! He walks in the room with all this stuff you endow him with, the truth is he is, of course, very elegant and suave and debonair — but he is a very sweet, kind, wanting to be a good man. There’s a vulnerability to him, which was a total surprise,” she said.
