Sarah Jessica Parker Once Shared How She Knew She Would Never Become a Movie Star
Sarah Jessica Parker’s most popular role might be columnist Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. But before starring in the hit television series, she’d already made waves in Hollywood by starring in several movies.
Despite her growing filmography, however, there came a point where Parker realized movie-stardom might not have been for her.
Sarah Jessica Parker was concerned that she’d sacrifice film opportunities for ‘Sex and the City’
It’s well known that Parker didn’t come on board the Sex and the City series easily. A young star at the time, Parker was already in the midst of building a respectable filmography. She felt tying herself down to a series might only impede her growth as a film actor.
In an old interview with Larry King, Parker opened up about feeling uncertain about going back to television after a decade.
“I had been working in movies and working in theater and living in New York, and I was concerned about the time constraint and about the idea of television making you so identifiably one person and that it wouldn’t give me opportunities to do movies and to work in the theater and have options,” she said.
However, the Sex and the City script was too attractive for Parker to pass up the opportunity. After taking the role, the Emmy-winner shared that she never looked back.
Why Sarah Jessica Parker felt she would never become a movie star
Parker was already somewhat of a veteran actor even when she was on the rise in Hollywood. The fashion icon had been performing from the time she was a child. Although she didn’t like the idea of child actors, she appreciated her own past work considering it was in theater and not in films.
“I worked as a child actor in New York City, mostly in theater, and it’s an entirely different set of circumstances than making movies or a TV series. The pressures are so much less, and there’s so much less money at stake. You’re not a product,” she once told the LA Times.
Eventually, Parker would transition into more mainstream roles acting alongside major stars. L.A. Story and Ed Wood were just a couple of the notable films she starred in during the 90s. Despite her growing filmography, however, true movie stardom seemed to elude the actor. This baffled some of Parker’s collaborators, who felt the Hocus Pocus star had all the talents and looks to succeed.
“I think she is being tragically overlooked by Hollywood,” director David Frankel once said. “For all her life she was told she was not pretty enough. But she is very smart and to me that’s sexy–on top of a knockout body. She is one of the leading comediennes of her generation.”
But Parker believed there was a simple formula that stopped her from becoming a movie star.
“What makes a real movie star is when you give the audience exactly what they want. Like with Woody Allen. We expect something from him, we enjoy it and want more of it,” Parker said. “And I will never achieve that because that’s my great fear–being the same.”
How Sarah Jessica Parker once pictured her post ‘Sex and the City’ career
Parker might have achieved the kind of stardom she didn’t think she’d achieve with Sex and the City. But after the series ended, she decided to take a much calmer approach to her life. The actor planned to still star in movies while putting a bit more focus on her family.
“I’ll be more present in my own life,” she once told Oprah. “My world feels so compartmentalized now: There’s work, and then there’s rushing home to see the baby and put him to bed. It’s like, ‘Remember me? I’m the one who loves you.’ Once he’s asleep, I run upstairs to answer phone calls and sort mail. After Sex and the City is finished, I might do a couple of movies a year, and I’ll have time to see friends. We’ll go on vacations again.”
But Parker has also dabbled in television years after the series ended. She’s given her talents to the HBO series Divorce, and recently returned to the Sex and the City franchise with And Just Like That.
