Sarah Jessica Parker can’t help but wonder why Carrie Bradshaw has so many critics.
After all, the Sex and the City star proved that she supports her character’s rights and wrongs in the OG series and its spinoff And Just Like That.
“There’s a sentiment that she’s frustrated or she’s selfish or she makes poor decisions or she doesn’t manage her money,” Sarah shared on the June 18 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast. “All of that has been true over the course of the last 25 years.”
However, she emphasized that Carrie is also “hugely loyal, decent, reliable, a really good friend, generous, available, present, comforting, giving of herself in big and small ways that are private and public to her and among her friends.”
The actress—whose character leaned on her close group of friends Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) in the series—does understand some of the frustration, especially with her tumultuous romance with Mr. Big (Chris Noth).
“If I were watching her and if I were her friend,” she explained to host Alex Cooper, “and I would see a misstep or see her keep repeating something, however she was choosing to deal with Big, I’m sure I would feel frustration.”
But walking in Carrie’s Manolo Blahniks since 1998 gives her a different perspective. She admitted, “I want all of it.”
Sarah also believes her character’s gender plays a role in the criticism. Pointing to The Sopranos’ mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), who was the head of a ruthless crime family, she noted that he was “a deeply flawed man.”
However, she said there was more criticism at the time about Carrie “having an affair with a married man.” (Big tied the knot with Bridget Moynahan’s Natasha Naginsky in season two.)
Despite understanding where the criticism towards Carrie comes from, Sarah will always have love for the writer. She added, “I admired that she was scrappy. She was a little survivor.”
In fact, she prefers Carrie to be an imperfect person, who she said wasn’t “always making smart choices” and was “falling short of being the best friend or the best girlfriend or her best self.”
Sarah added, “I was very happy that they were writing her that way.”
Read on for a closer look at Carrie Bradshaw and her girl group in Just Like That.
