Celebrity interview - Sarah Jessica Parker

It's one of the most highly-anticipated movies of the year, but making Sex and the City: The Movie wasn't glitch-free. Leading lady Sarah Jessica Parker reveals what it was like reprising her award-winning role as New York columnist Carrie Bradshaw four years after the TV series ended.

Since Sex and the City ended on UK screens in 2004, the series' leading lady Sarah Jessica Parker has sat in hotel rooms around the world promoting romantic comedies such as The Family Stone and Failure To Launch.

Yet she never imagined that, four years later, she would be discussing the big screen version of the hit TV show.

"I never thought I would be sitting here talking to you on this day about this movie," reveals the 43-year-old, flicking her tousled hair.

"I swear I'm not making this up. Michael Patrick King, the director and writer and I talk at the end of each of these (interview) days and we cannot believe this is happening. We cannot believe this dream has come true."

As sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw, she is a fashion icon. In real life, Sarah Jessica is also a fashionista. Today, in a New York hotel suite, she's wearing a Lanvin dress with a vintage Yves Saint Laurent belt, accessorised with jewellery by Fred Leighton. "The hair is my own though!" she adds, laughing.

The actress, who has a son - five-year-old James Wilkie ‒ with actor husband Matthew Broderick, reveals she had a vital role in organising Sex and the City: The Movie. While she knew it would happen, it was a matter of choosing the right time.

"The seeds had been planted for the movie. Two years ago, in April 2006, I picked up the phone and started putting the pieces back together again," she recalls.

"In the latter part of summer 2006, we got Michael involved. The only reason we didn't get him involved right away is that I knew that Michael wasn't able to just visit and ponder an idea - he would go and write a script - so it would be too reckless of me to suggest it without really knowing there was some reality to it.

"I don't think that Michael and I wanted to come back in series form. Our personal lives were different. I have a son who still really likes us and wants us around.

"Now is not the time for me to leave him but a movie is a finite period of time and so, lo and behold, two years later here we are."

And despite playing Carrie for six years, Sarah Jessica admits she had initial doubts about reprising the role.

"I always just worry. It's who I am. I always think that I'm going to be fired the first week of any job," she says.

"I didn't think that I was going to be fired from this but I thought I was disappointing Michael. I always think that; it's just the way I function at the top of every job."

But it didn't take long for things to get back to the way they were.

"The first scene was seeing Chris (Noth, who plays Big) waving at him, walking across the street, kissing him, walking into an apartment building and all the first scenes of the movie. That was really what we shot first," she says.

"And for the first few days it was myself and Chris, and then it was Kristin (Davis, who plays Charlotte) and the last day of that week Kim (Cattrall, who plays Samantha) and Cynthia (Nixon, who plays Miranda) joined us. So by the time it was the four women on Park Avenue on that perfect September day, it was just unforgettable.

"I didn't really have concerns over that week. That week was just lubricating the machine and getting it up and running. The harder stuff came later; the emotional stuff that Carrie had never experienced before, was just very painful. It was surprisingly upsetting, but it was the role of a lifetime. I wouldn't have run from it, but I ran towards it completely."

The film's storyline has been kept largely under wraps, allowing for speculation and rumours. But Sarah Jessica says the movie wasn't just a money-making scheme - it was more for the fans.

"We just really wanted the people who cared, who invested the time and the interest in the past 10 years, who wanted this experience, not to have their experience spoiled, plain and simple," she explains. "It was only through their enthusiasm that we could even make this movie.

"But I am proud to have spent the last two years of my life cobbling this movie back together again, resuscitating it I don't know how many dozens of times, and fighting for it to be made; making the story we wanted to tell, with the people we wanted to tell it, within the environment and the studio and the kind of money we knew we needed.

"That is more unbelievable then sitting and watching it. It's complicated to try and articulate how privileged Michael and I feel having been able to do this. That's the miracle."

Her pride in the result shows through, as she says: "I think it's very unconventional for a romantic comedy to be filled with so much bleakness, so much despair and to have so much disappointment. To have the big theme be forgiveness and to have people be adults and recognise their own complicity in their disappointments is just an unusual way to put together a romantic comedy."

While Sarah Jessica is instantly recognisable for playing Carrie, she's actually been an actress since childhood. However, it was Sex and the City that propelled her to worldwide fame, something she admits she never dreamt of.

"I don't think this is where I expected to find myself, and I don't think a person can really plan a career in the entertainment industry because I think there are too many elements that are out of a person's control," she says.

"This is my 35th year as an actress. So, I've been working a long time and I'm glad that I didn't have extraordinary success younger.

"I personally savour every disappointment and every regret and every small triumph. If I had been told earlier that this would be my life, I wouldn't have been prepared because I wouldn't have done any of the work."

As for a potential sequel, Sarah Jessica says she's trying not to think too far ahead.

"Getting to this point has been the sole professional focus of my life for the last two years. So, to think beyond this, is greedy," she adds.

"It's not up to us anyway. This has been a dream. To ask for anything more is just vulgar."