For many, Sarah Jessica Parker and her iconic Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw are one and the same.

Parker’s leading role in the ’90s show saw her become a New York City style icon and a global treasure, but it has also opened her up to painful criticism and opened her eyes to glaring double standards.

The Emmy Award-winner, 60, sat down for a 73 minute interview with Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper, 30, and opened up about the highs and lows of bringing the iconic Carrie Bradshaw to life.

Watch the video above.

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‘Cruel’ commentary about her looks that left her ‘sobbing’

Parker’s role in the beloved TV show saw her reach an extreme level of fame which presented a wealth of opportunities but also a barrage of harsh commentary – something she says she was “not prepared for”.

There was criticism about her work but what got to her the most was the criticism about her looks.

“Discussions of my physical person [were the hardest],” Parker told Cooper.

“Like stuff that I couldn’t change. I wouldn’t change and had never considered changing.

“Or even still after hearing something that was like, ‘What? Somebody would say that?’ Even still no interest in changing it.”

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She continued that it didn’t feel like a conversation that she could contribute to.

“I didn’t feel like I could sit in a room and someone would say to me, ‘You’re really unattractive.’ And then I could say, ‘Wow. Well first of all, that’s like hard to hear. But second of all, why do you seem angry about it or why do you feel it’s necessary comment to say it?”

Reflecting on the harsh comments, Parker recalled one particular scenario that left her “sobbing”. 

“It was brought to my attention that a magazine said something really, really mean about who I am, how I look. It was like a kick in the rubber parts. I was just like, ‘Why is this a problem? Why is this deserving of your time and why do you seem to delight in saying it?'” Parker recalled.

“I called my friends… I was sobbing because it felt so purposeful.”

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While the negative criticism was hard to navigate, Parker admits it generally wouldn’t affect her too much.

“I think that’s the only time I really cried about it. And I think it was just like an accumulation of like maybe a season of that kind of commentary,” she said adding that she “cried about it because it just seemed so cruel”.

Double Standards

It wasn’t just Parker herself who was the subject of intense criticism; her character Carrie Bradshaw, while loved by some, was torn apart by others.

Parker recalls commentary about Carrie being a flawed character who made poor decisions – like having an affair with Chris Noth’s Mr big while he was married and she was seeing someone else – but stresses that there is so much more to her.

”There’s a sentiment sometimes that she’s frustrated or she’s selfish or she makes poor decisions or she doesn’t manage her money. Well, yeah, all of that has been true over the course of the last 25 years,” Parker said.

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“But she’s also been like hugely loyal, decent, reliable, a really good friend, generous, available, present, comforting, giving of herself in, you know, big and small ways that are private and public to her and among her friends.”

While she acknowledged there may be some substance to the criticism of Bradshaw’s character, Parker also noted a glaring double standard.

“I think we forgive our male characters, our male leads,” Parker said.

“We have no problem if they’re murderers, you know” she added, referring to Tony from the popular TV show Sopranos.

“Tony Soprano was a deeply flawed man but we didn’t talk as much about that as we did Carrie having an affair with married man. It was just very curious to me where they say she’s selfish. And I was like, I can give you 10 reasons in ways in which she wasn’t.”

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Sarah Jessica Parker admires Carrie Bradshaw

While some may criticise Carrie, Parker admires her alter ego flaws and all.

“I admired that she was scrappy. She was a little survivor,” Parker said.

“She had like instincts keep her head [up], not always making smart choices and falling short of being the best friend or the best girlfriend or her best self, but I also was very happy that they were writing her that way.”

Parker also says she admires her “candor” and “her curiosity about sex and sexual politics”.

”I like that she was sort of circumspect when she wrote that she had a kind of thing about, ‘This was what happened and how does it relate to the world? How does it relate to other women?'”

Parker hasn’t watched the show

All this may be true but Parker admits she tends to avoid watching the widely famous show.

“I’ve never seen most of it. I’ve never watched the show,” she revealed. She said she “watched it in the beginning” and for a time received rough cuts from the studio but “finally begged off”.

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Producer and director Michael Patrick stressed that it was important for Parker to watch it to give him notes but she soon realised it wasn’t productive.

“I realised that I wasn’t being helpful because it was so unpleasant for me to watch myself that I couldn’t see the work, and that’s not a good producing partner,” she admitted revealing that by the “second season, [she] wasn’t watching at all.”

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