Wow. Could this be the key to explaining the rift between Kim Cattrall and her Sex And The City co-stars??
In this week’s episode of the Women’s Prize For Fiction Podcast, the 64-year-old is spilling some serious tea about a big behind-the-scenes struggle while filming the HBO hit.
Related: Kim Has ‘No Regrets’ About Blasting SJP In Public
Basically, she revealed that she was thinking about having a baby right as the show took off — and unfortunately it wouldn’t have been easy for her. She explained:
“This was 1998, I would have to become a bit of a science experiment… My partner and I would have to be available to have sex at a certain time… There’s just no way, I could have done that in a healthy, emotional, physical, or even physical state, and do 19-hour days.”
Kim had just married musician Mark Levinson in 1998. The decision whether or not they would have kids was a HUGE one. And sadly she did not think she could have that part of her life AND stay on the show; she continued:
“So I was also 41. And, and I just thought that I have to make a decision here for my well being. And I love to work, my work has been my passport to my independence and my freedom and my education…”
When she weighed her continued employment on the show versus taking months to devote to trying to get pregnant, she couldn’t help but think how lucky she was, in a sea devoid of roles for women her age, to have found the lifeboat of SATC:
“So the thought of it in my 40s, where the amount of scripts were more than cut in half, because now I was no longer considered the young lady… My roles were being taken over by younger and younger women. So that was the system and still is to a great degree… The great thing is that women now are writing great parts for women, and they’re in their 60s. But at that time, to get a show, like Sex in the City, which had not at the very beginning, but became very much [pro feminist], especially with my character, a feminist stance about sexuality, in particular. So I thought to myself, I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t, I can go through all of whatever the doctor tells us to do. And we can do it down to the letter, and I still might not be able to maintain a pregnancy, which is heartbreaking.”
And then she wouldn’t have the job OR the baby. So awful she felt like she was in such an impossible position!
But the show was just so much, even when they were on hiatus; as she says “it was so demanding when we weren’t filming the show, we were promoting the show”:
“I’d never done a series before. So it was all encompassing, and it was, a lot of it was a lot of fun. And I loved it and, you know, being being a new territory, so always exciting, you know…”
But Kim was a victim of her success. She chose the show:
“So I felt like we were and so I made the decision that I was not going to have children…”
We can’t help but wonder if the decision ultimately made her resent the show, its success, and her co-stars.
After all Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon each have three kids, Kristin Davis has two. But all were a bit younger than Kim when they started the show, by about nine years. They weren’t looking at the same struggle she was.
And we all know where she ended up landing so many years later, totally unwilling to return to the franchise for a third film.
While she never goes that far in the interview, she does talk about the vitriol she experienced from the fan base over her decision. Listen to the whole hour-long talk HERE.
[Image via Z.Tomaszewski/WENN/HBO/YouTube.]
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