This weekend another Jones returns to our screens, not Indiana, Samantha. Here, Kim Cattrall talks about the character that puts the
Sarah Jessica Parker might be head girl but Kim Cattrall is still the woman putting the sex into ‘Sex and the City’. As if to prove the point, it was the eventual acceptance of Kim to go back to sex-mad Samantha Jones that gave ‘Sex and the City: The Movie’ the along-awaited green light. The British-born actress had been reluctant to return to the franchise that made her name after four years working on other projects but in the end a deal was struck and Samantha is back in all her gaudy glory taking on that other famous Jones – Indiana – at the box office this summer. When SATC the series reached its big climax it left Samantha having battled back from cancer and in the arms of her true love. Four years on and everything for all the girls is up for revision as a new bigger and glitzier chapter opens at cinemas across the globe. Here the three times divorced star tells us what it’s like to be a fifty-something sex symbol and how she’s only too pleased to be back keeping up with Samantha Jones.
Q: So what’s happening with Samantha in Sex and the City: The Movie?
A: “Well, I’m sworn to secrecy – we all are. I can tell you she has a dog, a little terrier that’s a bit of a diva, of course. I’m not crossing any
legal lines there (laughs).”
Q: It’s well known that you drove a hard bargain before you agreed to do the movie. Are you glad you finally agreed to get back with the girls?
A: “Oh absolutely. It was a blast. We all had a really good time. It was a little nerve-racking at the beginning. The first day of shooting, there were hundreds of people screaming with excitement and taking pictures. It was fabulous, but incredibly overwhelming.”
Q: Samantha has had a fair few nude scenes over the years. How hard are they to do?
A: “Well, I was never completely nude in SATC — just bits and bobs. But Samantha has a comfort with her body that I, Kim, don’t have so it’s not as easy as it might look.”
Q: So do we see Samantha get naked on the big screen?
A: “Ah, that would be telling (laughs).”
Q: Did you keep any of the clothes you wear in the movie?
A: “I think we all did, although Samantha’s dress sense isn’t always mine. But one of the biggest thrills about doing this movie was to work with
Patricia Field again. None of us could wait to see what we would be wearing.”
Q: How do you feel about being regarded as a sex symbol?
A: “At 51, are you kidding? Flattered. I think any woman would be prettyhappy about that (laughs).”
Q: Would you have plastic surgery?
A: “I don’t think so. I’d be too frightened. There are so many examples of things that have gone horribly wrong. I had a great time in my youth and I still feel very youthful but I have no desire to look as though I was in my 20s. I want to look healthy but I want to look close to my age.”
Q: You’ve been working a lot in the UK since SATC ended. Why is that?
A: “Because the offers are just not happening in America for me. It’s easier there. When director Peter Hall called me to do ‘Whose Life Is It Anyway’ on the stage, he told me, “You’d have to be in bed for the whole play, but this time, it’s because you’re a quadriplegic!” It’s nice that somebody was so willing to stretch people’s perceptions of who you are. Also, I’ve had a need to go back to my roots — to Liverpool — where I was born. That’s been very joyous for me.”
Q: Could there be more SATC in the future?
A: “I thought everything was sewn up quite neatly four years ago, but it seems as long as Michael Patrick King comes up with these great scripts,
there will be an audience. At least I hope there will be. We’ll see how this one goes.”
Q: What else have you got coming up?
A: “I have a comedy in development at HBO. It’s a story of a woman in a certain time in her life. But I won’t be wearing any high necklines!”
‘Sex and the City’ is in Irish Cinemas Now.