“It looks like a punctuation mark that feels applicable,” Sarah Jessica Parker tells The Occasions the day earlier than receiving the Golden Globes’ Carol Burnett Award. “Not that I ought to even be getting this.”
There’s that trademark self-deprecating tone she shares with Carrie Bradshaw, her most indelible character that she performed for the higher a part of three a long time, first in “Intercourse and the Metropolis,” which ran for six seasons on HBO within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, then within the reboot “And Simply Like That…,” which concluded final yr after its third season.
The Carol Burnett Award, introduced on the “Golden Eve” particular airing Thursday as a part of the Globes’ “Golden Week” celebrations, honors excellence in tv, which, for Parker, extends past the “Intercourse and the Metropolis” universe and into roles on “Sq. Pegs,” “Glee” and “Divorce.” In reality, she received her begin on the age of 8 because the titular “Little Match Lady” on NBC’s “Younger Folks’s Specials.”
Parker relishes the chance “to be pressured to take a look at the final 52 years and to understand forevermore the journeyman, in some ways, profession that I’ve been in a position to have” — even when she’s a bit bit daunted by the prospect.
Along with receiving the Globes honor, Parker spent 2025 judging the Booker Prize, for which she learn 153 books. She additionally has a manufacturing firm, Fairly Matches, which produced “And Simply Like That…” and the brand new “The Household Stone” sequel.
This interview has been frivolously edited and condensed for size and readability.
It’s been a giant yr for you, with the ultimate season of “And Simply Like That…” and judging the Booker Prize. This have to be a pleasant approach to cap it off with the Carol Burnett Award.
It’s not a typical bookender, that’s for positive! I felt very content material and grateful for the yr. That is extraordinary and I’m deeply humbled. It’s a beautiful and beneficiant gesture from the Golden Globes.
Did you watch Carol Burnett rising up? Was she a giant affect on you?
I did. We didn’t have a tv for lots of my youthful years. I might invite myself over to a good friend’s home who had a tv and who would tune into CBS on Saturday nights for his or her lineup, which began with Carol Burnett. I might name my good friend and ask if I may come over to observe Carol Burnett. She was an enormous a part of my childhood. She was sort of the gateway to distinctive comedy — bodily comedy, mental comedy, and a beautiful absurdity but additionally very often, in stunning methods, quite heartbreaking. She was and stays one of many nice comedic individuals.
My mother and father met in a manufacturing of “As soon as Upon a Mattress” and I went on and performed that half on Broadway within the first revival after [Burnett’s] star-making 1967 flip as Winnifred. I grew up listening to the solid album. She’s been in my life in a number of methods. She’s been an enormously influential individual [to me] on- and off-screen for numerous a long time.
Have you ever met or labored with Carol earlier than?
She got here to see “As soon as Upon a Mattress” so I met her then, however apart from that I’ve not had the chance to work together with her. I’ve remained an admirer of her all these years like tens of millions of others.
You have already got six Golden Globes on your work on “Intercourse and the Metropolis.” What does it imply to you to be receiving this profession achievement award for excellence in tv?
I began in tv. My first function was because the Little Match Lady after I was 8 years outdated for NBC. They used to do their “Younger Folks’s Specials,” fortunately for me, out of Cincinnati, Ohio. [Parker was born in Ohio.] This quite gifted director named Tom Robertson wrote and directed these unimaginable “Younger Folks’s Specials.” After I was 8 I stood consistent with 500 different little women at our native NBC affiliate in downtown Cincinnati and auditioned and received the function. That’s after I may perceive this sense that I possessed about being an actor. That was 52 years in the past!
I really feel I’ve had a really fortunate, hard-fought-for, unimaginable profession. I’ve had alternatives to work with among the greats — actors, administrators, writers — and among the great younger expertise that’s rising; to play all kinds of various individuals from completely different locations and main completely different lives and having splendidly completely different hopes and goals. To ponder that in an try and attempt to talk what this award means is momentarily mystifying; to be pressured to take a look at the final 52 years and to understand forevermore the journeyman, in some ways, profession that I’ve been in a position to have. I’ve discovered a lot love and artistic problem in it and I’ve met so many singular individuals.
You actually helped to pave the best way for lots of female-focused tv we’ve seen within the years since “Intercourse and the Metropolis.” What does it imply to have performed such an iconic character on such an iconic present?
It’s onerous to search out new phrases to explain the sort of gratitude and luck to play a job that was so colourful, so fascinating to me and offered so many alternatives to do issues I hadn’t accomplished, and to work alongside the three different girls for thus lengthy, who made the work higher and a lot extra thrilling, enjoyable and necessary. To be taking pictures on the streets of New York — my hometown, a metropolis that I like — and to shoot it in a approach that painted it in a lot brighter colours however communicated an affection and romance that to this point hadn’t been portrayed in tv. To work initially with Darren Star, after which spend the vast majority of the final 25 years with Michael Patrick King as my producing associate. To have HBO be our dwelling and my skilled household. All of it provides as much as such riches. Most significantly of all, the objective of an actor is to share it, have individuals see it and have robust, passionate emotions about it — good and typically dangerous. To have related with so many individuals for thus a few years is de facto your nice hope as an actor.
Sarah Jessica Parker in “And Simply Like That…,” which concluded final yr after its third season.
(Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max)
Is it a bit bittersweet to be receiving this award proper after we’ve stated goodbye to Carrie Bradshaw?
It doesn’t really feel bittersweet; it looks like a punctuation mark that feels applicable. Not that I must be getting this, nevertheless it looks like this good wrapping round this as a particular second layer that I may by no means have predicted or dreamed of.
Is there an opportunity Carrie Bradshaw may grace our screens once more at some point of the long run?
I don’t have any dependable predictions about that. We take note of what instinct tells us — we’ll proceed to take heed to that.
It was simply the twentieth anniversary of “The Household Stone” and we sadly misplaced the incomparable Diane Keaton this previous yr, one other groundbreaking comic. What have been your emotions once you heard the information?
Devastated. For her household, for the flicks she was but to make, for her common presence in our lives. Due to social media, we received to see extra of her. It was such a large loss that was deeply felt, due to her spectacular profession in films, however the best way she appeared on the world with curiosity and bemusement. She was a really particular individual — I all the time felt it, however when she handed was the chance to say so. I’ve labored together with her greater than as soon as, however on “The Household Stone,” specifically, to observe her work, what mattered to her, that she cared and took it severely but additionally discovered time to be foolish and provocative and inquisitive and all the time create one thing very worthwhile on display.
Is there something you’re in a position to share about “The Household Stone” sequel?
We’re fairly far alongside. I liked working with [director] Tom Bezucha. The toughest half might be determining all people’s schedules. And tips on how to exist with out Diane. Her presence might be felt in a really massive approach, little question.
Let’s discuss your literary imprint, SJP Lit. The books you’ve revealed over the previous two and a half years are all so various. How do you select which books you’ll publish?
It’s a purely emotional response. You get a manuscript at 2 p.m. within the afternoon and you realize you higher learn it quick so that you might be a part of the bidding. I really feel compelled to compete when a ebook looks like a model new voice, a narrative I’ve not heard, a spot I’ve not been, individuals I don’t know, written oftentimes by debut authors who’ve such talent and you may simply really feel their careers 10 years from now and also you simply know they’re going to be one of many nice American voices. Or a voice from one other a part of the world. Each ebook I’ve fallen in love with. Literary fiction is a selected curiosity of mine so I publish nearly totally literary fiction, however not solely.
Our most up-to-date ebook, “I Am You,” was talked about twice within the New York Occasions this week as “essentially the most luxurious fiction” and as a greatest ebook of the week. I received on the airplane [to come to Los Angeles for the Golden Globes] and a lady stopped me to say she had “I Am You” to learn on the flight! When you find yourself experiencing readers feeling what you felt once you first learn it, it’s such a thrill. Once they’re assembly an writer for the primary time and turn into such devotees and stick to them and lengthy for extra. I search for all of that. I’ve to struggle for it — I’m up in opposition to all the massive publishing homes, so it’s very onerous to compete. However I’ll all the time strive.
And in case you weren’t busy sufficient this yr, you additionally judged the Booker Prize. What was that have like?
It was one of many presents of a lifetime. It was thrilling and massively daunting. Each month was this parcel of books written by among the most necessary names in fiction, after which all these new voices. I used to be deep inside actually particular storytelling. It was agonizing to must let books go. To be having these deliberations with the opposite 4 judges — led by Gaby Wooden, who is that this dazzling, spectacular human being, who I got here to know and love and respect and be taught a lot from — was one of the thrilling workout routines I’ve ever accomplished. Even when there have been occasions after I thought I wasn’t going to make the deadline for deliberations, I all the time did — I couldn’t disguise at the back of the category! To announce the winner on Nov. 10 and be within the room with all the shortlisted nominees, all of whom had written such eternal, completely distinctive tales, and to get to inform them so was one of the thrilling nights of my life.
Between the Booker Prize and SJP Lit, can you learn for enjoyable?
I by no means felt as if I wanted I could possibly be studying one thing else. When you’re a grasping reader, like all of us [who judged the Booker Prize] are, it’s a contract to say that you just’re solely allowed to do what you’re keen on greatest for the subsequent 10 months. I skilled each a kind of first pages as all optimism, all potential, all hope. Even when an writer falls quick, I don’t need that point again. It’s no burden.
Would you ever write a ebook your self?
I don’t assume I’ve that expertise. I don’t have the self-discipline. I’m not in a position to be in a room alone for that lengthy. I’m one among eight children, so there was all the time chaos and exercise round. I’ve three children. I may by no means even brush my enamel alone. I all the time must be with different individuals. I don’t know the way [authors] do it. Judging the Booker, you’ll be able to actually respect how onerous it’s to write down an important ebook.
Your “And Simply Like That…” colleagues Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis are returning to the stage with “Marjorie Prime” and delving into the podcast world with “Are You a Charlotte?,” respectively. Will we see you again on stage or podcasting anytime quickly?
I haven’t discovered the subsequent yr but. There are a few films that I’ve signed on to take action these will most likely occur first. There’s a play that myself and my husband [Matthew Broderick] have been requested to do. Podcasts, I don’t know.
