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This is an ABC color mistake.

Hello, I'm Alec Baldwin. Tonight, a conversation with one of my favorite

in our business.

She's an actress, a producer, a book publisher, the one, the only Sarah

Parker. The former Sex and the City star.

and two -time Emmy winner, continues to produce projects for movies and

television, including her latest feature film, Here and Now, which is in

theaters and streaming.

She is also a successful designer and entrepreneur after launching her own

of women's shoes called SJP.

We're glad you've joined us. A conversation with Sarah Jessica Parker

right now.

I have a silly image of you as a result of a lot of the work you've done.

I'll tee this up this way, which is my ex -wife was one of these people who we

would go to the Excelsior at the Lido in Venice, and she was making a film. And

we'd walk in, and we had just arrived in Italy, and on every plain surface in

the room, every coffee table, side table, the bureau, the TV cabinet,

there was a flat surface was a...

with a gift for her.

Dear Kim, please accept from Bottega Veneta this little gift.

Welcome to Italy.

I see you, like, you're in the crayon, you're somewhere around, and everywhere

you go, people are like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and just, you

fashion, jewelry, shoes, all that other stuff.

Did that, is that something your business sense?

Is it something that you had to access someone to help you make that that way?

Did you have business sense yourself? No, I mean, to be on the receiving end

that? To be marketing and selling.

the image of this glamorous... No, I've never... You're on the TV show.

Right. And fashion becomes a component of that character.

Correct, correct. Are you choosing the clothes with... With Pat. With Pat? Yes,

for sure. Or is Pat saying to you, I think this will go?

Long, five -hour fittings, many... Not her, but you. As much of a collaboration

as anything.

I mean, an eye that is...

completely unique is patricia field like there is nobody on the face of the

earth that sees the world the way she sees it forever from the time she's been

young adult and left her parents home um but i brought her on um she and i had

done a movie together uh david frankel movie called miami rhapsody and i loved

her and and barry jocelyn the producer of our first year on the show said pat

were like yes of course and she came but We worked hand in glove.

I mean, that was, I learned everything from her, and she opened up those

conversations. They were fittings, and she had lots of ideas, but I never once

said no to her.

Even as outrageous and ridiculous and unthinkable and as much of a possible

disaster, I didn't care. I would do anything for her. I would try anything

But, yeah, it was definitely something we worked on closely together.

Oh, my God!

Shh, Carrie.

Do you know what the...

We're not even supposed to be in here.

Manolo Blahnik, Mary Janes. I thought these were an urban shoeman. From that,

you know, it's blurry.

Who am I? Who is Carrie Bradshaw?

And I think it was the beginning of all of that gift giving and people telling

me or us who we were. And I didn't need to stoke those flames, nor was

I interested. I love playing that character.

did everything possible to see it. But you start to turn it into a business.

Well. You start doing hair commercials and this and this and this. Right. You

take the glam thing into the business world. No, true. And actually, I will

and he will probably deny this, but I kept saying no to the hair commercials.

And because Kenny Lonergan kept saying to me, like, you can't do that.

You can never do that. And I was like, really?

You're possibly right, but then I spoke to someone else and they were like, are

you out of your freaking mind?

You know, they're not asking that much of you and it's an honor. These were

early days of all that.

And yeah, I did a fragrance, but I wanted to do a fragrance since I was a

woman. The first time I ever worked outside on my own, I worked with someone

who... wore fragrance and i grew up my mom wore fragrance my mom has a whole

thing about fragrance and saving up money to go to dayton's in minneapolis

buy her fragrance and um so it all sort of came together but these were early

days of of that this wasn't building a brand or an empire that that didn't

that language that vernacular all of that plotting and strategizing

That was not... Did you partner with anybody in the overall, or was it just

ad hoc? I worked with Cody on the fragrance for years, and now I have a

We work with somebody else, but it's not part of a large company anymore.

The shoe business I own with my partner, George Malcomith III.

I'm an employee of the Crown in publishing.

But these are all things that I...

i'm doing because i i love the production company is you know 12 14

now and these are things i love doing it's i am 100 involved in it for better

worse few women had a career in which we merge from from a program you do prime

to do that kind of thing as a fashion trend you know what i think though i

that um you know and as we've all been talking a lot about

you know, changing the dynamics on a set or in businesses across all industries,

you know, 50 -50 by 2020.

I will say that early on, men really gave me the opportunity

to be a producer, to be a business person.

It was because of Darren Star that I work in business because he said to me

I met him, when he asked me to do the show, he said, you should produce a

And I was like, I don't know how to produce television. He's like, you'll

Learn how to produce. So the first year, be a consultant, and then you'll be a

producer. Sit around smart people, listen, pay attention, zip it, and

And I did, and I learned that I loved it. And then I met Catherine Walsh at

Cody, who was one of the mucky mucks at Cody.

Brilliant. And she said, pay attention, learn business, learn profits, and learn

all of it.

Learn what a tech package is. Learn production overseas. Learn all of it.

I had a lot of people, and men included, in my early stages of learning business

that were, I think, extremely generous and open to hold, allowed another

There's a maturity and a warmth and an intelligence to you.

Where do you think you get that from?

Well, that's very kind of you. I hope I would like to be that person you

describe.

I think if you're lucky, you get to be around people that you mimic.

You see in others qualities.

You admire that about them. You wish you possessed growing up, honestly. And who

was it you?

I think early on, my mom.

Is she alive? She's alive, yeah. What is she like?

She just turned 80 in July, and she's very bright.

She's raised eight kids, no money.

She was an educator.

She's been on the front lines fighting for things she believed in long

before it was fashionable. She was talking about apartheid in the 50s by

on her college campus. And what of that did you pick up from her? All of that. I

mean, I picked up her.

Her desire to be in the world, she's a deeply curious person. She is a reader.

She can't get enough information.

She sleeps with the radio on always. I was in her house on Friday, and I was

like, where is that radio? She's like, oh, it's on here, and it's like, oh,

in my house.

But she believes in being, she is civic -minded to her core. She believes.

That it is our responsibility to be engaged. And she really means on a local

level, city, state, federal.

So she is one woman I admire a lot. But Claire Bloom, for instance. How do you

know her? I did a play on Broadway with her when I was 11. Which one?

The Innocent.

And Harold Pinter directed it.

And she was... I'd never seen anybody. I'd never...

Well, I'd never been around.

I mean, I was from Cincinnati, Ohio.

I hadn't yet moved to New York City.

And she was elegant and specific, professional,

demanding, high standard. She said to me, if you ever turn into a professional

child, I will never speak. We will not speak again. We will be estranged.

And I knew exactly what she meant.

I would sit in her dressing room.

And I would watch her get ready before the show. And I would stand in the wings

anytime I wasn't on stage.

And I would just stand by the speaker and listen to her.

And she has the most beautiful diction.

You know, she was with Philip Roth at the time.

You know, and he, my mom, like, worshipped Philip Roth.

So, like, I was around people.

And I would just...

see things in them qualities in them i would see somebody be really nice to the

dresser you know like i can't explain it but you're you're exposed to all of it

all day long we're all exposed to it doesn't matter matter whether we go into

the plumbing business or architects or teachers or gardeners we're exposed to

these possibilities all day long we're exposed to people being decent to each

other as much as we are People being disappointing.

So we have a choice.

And I learned from early on, you're much better in the world if you're decent

to somebody. Things have a... You'll last longer. Happier. The process is

far more pleasant.

And you get more out of it, I think.

Carrie, listen. It is different. Oh, it's never different. It's six years of

never being different.

But this is it. I am done.

Don't call me ever again. Forget you know my number. In fact, forget you know

name.

And you can drive down the street all you want.

Because I don't live here anymore.

Are you...

you know, coming out of, you know, a very famous TV show, which we won't

on a lot. That's okay, that's right.

But what I'm saying is, I only use that as a point of reference in terms of

doing a show like Sex and the City, when that's over, you go make a lot of

films.

When you leave TV a hit, I always say the same thing

about you and Gandolfini, people who change the fortunes of a company.

a company that had kind of dabbled unsuccessfully in original programming

then had two shows which were the original programming for a cable company

long, long time and made them a fortune.

And when you leave that, you leave that series TV thing where there's certain

pluses and minuses.

And did you decide you'd had enough of that? You didn't want to get back into

series TV and you don't do it again for like 12 years, right? Yeah.

I didn't think I would do a television series again.

At that time, it just seemed only because of what it asks of you time

especially when it's on film, and what I feel like it deserves.

Like, I love working in television.

But Michael Patrick taught me you should just turn yourself over to it. It's a

finite period of time.

If it's 18 hours a day and that's what it really is deserving of, you have to

give it. You have to be a total thoroughbred. You have to cross the

bloody. And I believe that.

I had a child, he was just about 12, 14 months old, and I thought, oh, I could

tell he needed me in a different way. I could tell that he was at a point...

When you finished or when you started?

When I was just starting to think about leaving the television series of Sex and

the City, I was like, my son is...

And I've been able to be absent in certain ways. And now I don't think I

nor do I want to be.

And I thought, I can't go back to television right now because I know what

want to be to him.

And film is like, boop. Or play is even sometimes, boop.

But TV is this, you know, revolving door.

It's like a chapter.

Yeah. And I, so I didn't think. But then, you know, then we started

divorce. And I didn't, I wasn't developing. It wasn't an idea I had for

all. I thought of lots of other people who I assumed would play the part.

But then eventually it came to me. You weren't going to do it?

No. It was just an idea I loved. I loved exploring.

I wanted to look at an American marriage, like a middle class.

Or the ideal of being a middle class American marriage. And what does that

like today?

And how are people functioning?

And what did you find?

So what we found is that people are pretty lousy at divorcing.

They don't do it well. Most people haven't done it more than once anyway,

it's a new experience. So why would they be good at it?

I don't know, Alec.

I was bored, and it was no picnic.

Let me just say, which was not unicorns and canteens. I know, I didn't mean to

bring it up.

What did you think when you left Dirty Rock? Were you like, well, that's, I'm

not. I did that. Well, I had an unusual thing because, I mean, your show,

although was this kind of obviously quartet of these famous women, it was

nonetheless your show. You're the principal. I mean, everybody could see

And on 30 Rock.

I mean, I got as much out of it as you can get, even though it was her show.

created it for her.

And I was very happy to go along for the ride.

And I enjoyed it. And I had this weird thing that I learned a profound lesson

from, which was we went along and season one was this developmental thing. And

then season two, we get a lot of good response. And then season three and

we win every award there is to be given.

And season five, everybody agreed, was the most anemic writing -wise, because

the writing was everything.

And then we all come back thinking, let's just do six and get out of here.

six comes, and it's a renaissance. Everybody's a ball. I turn and I go,

sign for 789. Oh, my God. I'm ready to sign for 789. How could I live without

this? And she was tired, because she had her second kid. Yeah.

And I always tell the same story, which is not meant with any judgment.

I said, when Tina Fey came in to rehearse one morning and laid down on

couch, I said, I knew we were done.

Yeah. Tina never laid down on the couch. It's hard to shoulder all of that. I

mean, it's a massive undertaking. But in that time that you're doing films and

other things, when we're going to get into your...

your empire of what you've been doing, but when you're doing other things in

between, to script the TV series, do you have the same kind of control you had

in TV? And if not, did you miss that? Is that one of the reasons you went back

to TV, was because you have more control?

I didn't miss control when, A, I haven't earned it, or there's no reason for me

to have it. I like being an actor for hire a lot. I like working for other,

with, other people.

That's not what you were with Star and Michael Patrick King.

I was a producer on that show. And over time, I grew

to be in a position of some authority and control.

And I hope I was honorable with that and not drunk or anything with power.

But I love that. I love producing television.

I love all of it. I love the development process. I love crewing up. I

love...

Contracts, I love all of it.

But I don't always want that much responsibility.

And so I'm very happy to be hired to do a play and or a movie that I'm not

producing and have nothing to do with.

And there are times when I'm producing where I'm not as involved in the

So I don't have to turn as much of myself over to it. But in television,

particularly, I like to because I just feel I know it now so well.

And I feel I can be useful. And also... youthful to actors and crew members and

advocate and, I don't know, you know, be good for them.

You have made many trips to the theater.

And your husband is famous as much as performing in the theater and his movies

and so forth.

What's that like in your house with the two of you?

You're not on Broadway at the same time.

Well, it's a privilege to make a choice.

And I wish...

frankly, all the other millions of working parents in this country could

the liberty of more choice in their life professionally.

I think about that a lot.

Come home and be with their kids in a way that they can't. Choose the kind of

work they want to do and feel confident in the kind of daycare that exists or

childcare that exists or the quality of the school they're sending their child

to. Maternity leave. Maternity leave, paid sick leave, like all these things

that I wish very much that we were doing better.

more we were doing better by all those women and men both now you do this show

recently uh divorce and uh uh and i i think to myself you know is marriage in

your mind you've been in a famous marriage for a long long time you only

once to one person but also this idea that like in my mind marriage is a

decision that you make is marriage a decision you think for people that use

there and go we're gonna is it for you I'm like a little boy now. Whenever my

wife is awake, I'm like, where are you going? Hello?

I'm like John Lennon and Yoko.

What? Where?

You're going to the bathroom?

Hurry back.

For how long?

Yes. Yes.

That's hilarious.

I don't think it's the same kind of decision it is when you make it as when

choose to be in it and stay. We were fairly young. We've been married 21

and been together.

Therefore, 27 years, 26 years.

But when you decide to get married when you're young, you decide to get married.

So that is a decision. But then you stay married.

And I think that is a more important decision than the initial decision to

marry. That's what I'm talking about. Yes.

Marriage is a decision to stay there.

Yeah. And I think if you get, the longer you stay, if you're willing, like if

you are choosing to stay, I now say that it's amazing

how much.

his life means to me how much he means how like his disappointments are mine

more so than my own his triumphs are mine like i sure i'm sure

there are many days he doesn't like me i don't like him so much he annoys me

it's just little silly things but but the things that don't matter this is the

big revelation the things that don't matter don't matter like and so

if you can Like, talk yourself out loud out of making a fuss.

And that's not that we don't fight. I'm not saying that we're a sort of ideal,

incredibly content couple 24 hours a day. But I do think that we're, like, I

don't, well, I don't want to be anywhere else. I want to be old for sure with

him. I see our future.

And I'm excited about it. Like, I'm excited about my future with him.

How many times did you have intercourse with his French?

Oh, um, one, um,

around 30, 32.

I want to say that I did a movie with you once.

I love that movie. We did this movie, State in Maine, that Mamet wrote and

directed. And him directing is always an unusual experience.

Oh, my God. He's such an odd bird. But can I just tell you, I would drive home

on the weekends.

You were going home, too. We were all driving home because we were shooting in

Massachusetts, so we could drive home on the weekends. Manchester by the Sea.

Yeah. And Philip and I would drive home on the weekends and drive back. And

every weekend.

I was convinced I was going to be fired. Every weekend I waited to hear from

somebody in David Mamet's office that I was going to be fired. I was so nervous

that whole movie.

I think because I admired you had done by then. You were like one of his

repertory leading men. You had worked with him.

I had only been his audience, and I knew how exact he was about words and

language. And I didn't know if I could be like you guys. Like, I didn't know

to be Mamet. I didn't know what could my version of Mamet be, and would it be

acceptable to Mamet?

It's not like we were doing a Mamet play and he wasn't there.

He was there.

Yeah, yeah. And he was specific. And he was every bit as demanding as I wanted

him to be because I wanted to live up to this opportunity.

But literally every freaking Sunday, I would say to Matthew, I'd be like, this

could be it. Like, I might not. That's what came up when we went to the Red

Oh, my God. Do you remember how crazy?

People were screaming at Matthew.

People were screaming.

Screaming. And he's like, eh.

And do you remember he, we had to have security.

Take do you not remember that yeah, but he told me wherever he goes there is

Now the but I love that movie well, I love that movie what I

realized was I'm like, you know I wouldn't say terrified but concerned

Was I getting what he wanted? Could I give him what he wanted? Did I want to

give him what he wanted?

And someone has said to me, why would you take the instincts that got you

you are today and just throw them out the window to suit somebody? Right. You

what you do.

And, you know, De Niro sat here and said, I'm never going to tell somebody,

this, don't do this. When I hire you, there's a thing I hire you to do. And

you come, just do that. And if it doesn't work out in the part, if I was

mistaken, it's not your fault. I'll never make you feel bad. That was

I'll never make you feel badly about what I hired you to do. I knew what I

getting into it. If it doesn't work, it's my fault. And I'll never forget

you did the podcast, you said that the tendency was to try to act the whole

scene yourself.

You said that's the thing you learned not to do. And the other person wasn't

hitting the ball back the way you were used to.

Because you had many co -stars, many scene mates over the years of the show.

you can't make them be what you, by you, you turn into a bad actor. Right.

You become a bad actor and you focus on them.

Yeah. I love, I always remember you said that. It's hard to remember to do that

when you're in it. And, you know, who am I to say that someone's not, you know.

To my standards.

But, you know, when you're moving through that many people, the numbers...

machine is more oiled than theirs.

Yeah, and it's also so hard. You know, you've seen people... It's so hard to

come on a show for one day. It's so terrifying, and everybody's so

and knows the thing.

I mean, if there was one job that I felt like was most important, sometimes it

was that. It was to try to make every visitor feel comfortable. Welcome.

Like, don't worry...

We all want you here. Take your time. Like, it's just terrifying. But we just

say, we just say, Maine and Mamet would say to me, oh, you know, that voice, oh,

oh, you should go in and do it again. And, you know, just don't put anything

it. I mean, I really feel like you're putting a lot on it. You know, and I

like, I didn't know what to do. So they're going, really? You do?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I said, do you want me to go out and do it again? He goes, yeah, just take

everything off it. I go out and do exactly what I did the previous day.

And he goes, oh, let's do another one. You still think you're, I go.

I thought I took a lot off of it then. I thought I really laid back and took a

lot of it off. It's still too much. He's like, yeah, well, whatever. Let's do it

again. I go out and do it exactly the same way again. He'd be like, okay,

move on. He's like, how much time do we have?

It's an indie.

We don't have $50 million to make this movie.

Speaking of which, there's a moment in that movie which to me defines you in

my mind. Okay.

And that is that when you act with people,

who would work for you in your heart and your soul. My character, Bob, is in the

car accident. Name Bob.

Bob Barringer.

I always remember this because the scene that was funny that you're in is the

guy comes who's the real cop.

They hired the local covers like Mr. Barringer, Mr.

Barringer. They think I've had this kind of like, you know, Chappaquiddick

moment when he was in the car and Julia Stiles. And you come in the door and you

and I are acting in the, we're the actors who are acting in the movie. And

come to the door breathlessly. And I'll never forget, I thought, oh my God, how

generous of you that you love Bob.

You came to the door and you went, Bob?

Are you all right?

And I thought to myself, it said everything. You and I were in love. We'd

sex back when we did our last movie.

We did Desire Under the Elms at the Pasadena Playhouse, whatever.

And it was all there.

And I thought, who is more beautiful and who is more winning on film than you?

When you came in that doorway, it set the whole movie for me. You came in and

you were like, Pa, are you all right? And I was kind of like.

And I literally thought in my mind this kind of Reagan -esque kind of like

blithe way. I looked at you and I was kind of like, I'm a lot better now.

But you're here.

I always cry at the last scene of that movie when she sees him in front of the

hotel with his new wife. The simple girl. And she reaches up and smooths his

hair away. And she says to him, your girl is lovely Hubble.

You're a...

Famous New Yorker and the Mount Rushmore of famous New Yorkers. You're on that

mountainside. We'll save that. You and Howard and De Niro and whoever the

Maybe me. I might be in a distant background there. Ruth Gordon. Ruth

yeah.

Jane Jacobs. Tony Randall. Yes.

To this day, I remember Tony Randall's phone number.

Because his voice was so sing -songy. He came to a dressing room of a Broadway

show I was in. At the Roundabout?

When I was on Broadway doing Streetcar. And he came to my dressing room and he

goes, I'm doing a production for the National Actors Theater.

What would you do with Petrified Forest?

Would you like to play Duke Man -T?

He goes, please call me my number is 724 -24.

Oh, that's a good Upper West Side number.

724 -24.

That's the Upper West Side Prefix. Yeah, 724.

724 has to be Upper West Side. And when I moved, well, now you take your prefix

with you. Yeah, I know. It doesn't say anything. I moved downtown, and I'm

where's my 254 prefix? I live downtown.

Now, I've known you in a kind of quasiple.

You may not remember this. I found pictures in my basement.

I've been going through boxes of old stuff. Are they from the toxic waste

caravan from L .A.? No, they're from the 1988 Democratic Convention in Atlanta.

No, I know. The famous Rob Lowe sex tape trip that you and I were on.

Yes. Patrick Lippert. Patrick Lippert and I organized that whole trip.

He and I sat up for weeks.

And in the days leading up to everybody traveling to Atlanta, we put together

all of your folders.

We put together all the information you needed.

I stood and watched Rob get in that elevator. And I was like, who is Rob?

30 years later, let me say, thank you. Oh, my goodness. We were there. It was

like a movie. So Patrick Lippert politicized a bunch of people on the

Coast. Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden were together.

Going to the house and out to drive. All the time to those meetings. And I came

up from a political family. My family were very involved in politics long

I was born.

Local Democratic politics.

In Minneapolis.

Always in Cincinnati.

Previously in Ohio or in Iowa. My father was a writer. Grader's Ice Cream.

Grader's Ice Cream.

My father was a writer at Iowa Writers Workshop also.

So everywhere they went.

they were involved in politics and I worked for the McGovern campaign.

I worked for, you know, so I came up in politics, but I was so happy when

Patrick reached out and we were all put together in Los Angeles. That was a

pretty amazing time. And I think was enormously, well, obviously it was

informative, but I think it changed the course of a lot of people's lives,

whether they stayed working.

um for a party or they just stayed engaged they stayed engaged and active

that was amazing i mean you weren't on the toxic waste caravan as i call it i

don't recall i might remember that we went on the caravan up and down the

of california because people were dumping all right so you were in atlanta

was amazing because clinton spoke do you remember that we go we go to pat duff

produced the yeah we go there as guests If I recall correctly, we were guests of

the California delegation.

Hayden arranged for us to go.

And we go there.

But what I'm suggesting is that you are politically engaged to whatever degree.

But you're not noisy about that.

You feel smart.

You felt you needed to do that. Don't contaminate your work with your

opinion all the time.

I don't feel comfortable screaming and yelling about it.

I feel it just becomes an unbearably loud

battle where absolutely nobody is listening to anybody.

And you don't win by writing in caps.

You don't win by trying to get in an argument on Instagram.

Not that, frankly, that I'm interested in winning, actually. That's not the

point. But you're not going to find satisfaction in feeling heard.

So I like to work differently. And I think because I've always worked in

politics, I've always or rather I should say I've always been politically

active. I don't want to distract from what I think needs to be done or ways in

which I can be helpful. And oftentimes it's nothing that anybody was just, you

know, the phone bank or the thing or licking envelopes or whatever it is.

But I am so deeply distressed by.

the state of affairs that I don't want to contribute.

And I don't think I would be helpful. I don't think it comes naturally to me to

be really aggressive.

I think I can be effective in other ways. It's funny that you say that

because... Let me be clear about something, though.

I am not without extremely strong opinions. And those that are close to me

know me know that I... You?

I am almost incapable of not spouting off. Sure.

Where and when is the question.

Right, exactly.

When did you find time to do this, this little venture of yours?

Describe what's going on with you in the publishing world. That's a book called

A Place for Us, written by an extraordinarily...

uh what's the word um preternaturally gifted uh young woman named fatima

mirza named rave reviews yes so i met a woman named molly stern who's a big

fancy pants publisher at crown and all sorts of other imprints inside crown and

we started talking about books and i'm a reader and like a greedy

I have my whole life been a reader. My whole family is. My mother's a reader.

siblings are readers.

We didn't have a television.

We had to read books. No one was allowed to leave the house without a book

growing up.

And so we started talking about books.

And it turned out that Molly was about to publish a book that I had been trying

to get my hands on for a long time.

faking that I worked for media. I was trying to call other international

territories, trying to get this book by Herman Koch called Dinner.

Well, I felt like it was borderline.

But anyway, like that's my book. So she sent me some books.

A book club started.

We started reading books, yet to be published books, so we could talk about

emerging writers and support our independent booksellers and libraries.

book club still in formation?

It's not really, but from that. I wanted to join. Oh, you could absolutely join.

Oh, there's no fee.

Oh, no. I'll pay a substantial fee. When we rally again. To be in townhouse in

downtown with you reading book?

Book clubs are amazing.

I love book clubs. It's like time suspends and everything else goes away

you're on a vacation for just four hours. The only time I have to read is

12. That's why I'm so tired.

So anyway.

People from Crown came and said, listen, you love books and you have strong

feelings about them. And would you ever consider an imprint? And I, of course,

said no. And I don't know anything about it. And I've got no business.

They said, no, you should and you will. And we'll surround you with people that,

you know, I'm not an editor. I don't.

So they convinced me. But I specifically asked if I could work within the

Hogarth imprint, which is an old imprint that I love. And I love its history. It

was started by Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf.

And I loved what they were doing. It had sort of been reborn recently in this

country and in the U .K.

And so I started this imprint.

And after many months of reading manuscripts and losing out on some and

on others, this manuscript came to us in the spring of 2017.

And like I said, it was by this young woman who was just graduating the Iowa

Writers Workshop.

Her name was Fatima Fareem Mirza.

And I was, I don't know, 7 % through the book, according to my e -reader.

And I was overcome.

And I just knew that this was not only an important new American voice, but

that it was a really powerful story. So your involvement with this doesn't

really require too much of a shift in your schedule and time commitments. I

read. Yeah, you're an avid reader anyway. I just read. This was a

And so this was our first, this was our inaugural title.

And she published in number 12. She shared the 12th spot on

the New York Times bestseller list her first week, which is very unusual for

literary fiction. This is literary fiction, which is this kind of unique

genre of publishing. And I'm so proud of her.

And this book has, it's in its seventh or eighth printing.

And it's really resonated with so many.

It is a book for our time.

How so? Why do you think?

Well, it's about a family of immigrants. It's about parents who came

here from India, whose children were born in America.

It's about an American family in all its plurality. It's about parenting, and

it's about...

honoring people who sacrifice for you and being a person of faith, but having

different feelings about how you are observant and finding your own way in

world as a young person.

It's about being a first -generation Muslim American immigrant or child of

immigrant parents and what that means and the lens through which they

feel seen and what it really feels like to be in that community.

It's touching. It's about all of our lives. Is it a movie? It's about

we make.

Is it a movie?

Maybe, although that I didn't even occur to me. Yeah, no.

It's just an exquisite, beautiful, unforgettable read. It would be funny if

reveal your passion and your loyalty even to the literary world is greater

movies or TV. And people in your life are going, this is a movie. And you're

like, no, no.

I don't want that. Yeah, it has to be looked at in its purest form because I

don't want anyone to think like this is all some mercenary effort.

And you have a new album.

I do?

Yeah, it's my ninth.

I mean, if you don't count the duet album.

Believe me, I don't count that album. Oh, a lot of people like that record.

Plus their hearts.

And the new one's called... Third and A.

It's where I first lived in New York. I watched your movie. Here and Now. Here

and Now.

And, I mean, obviously you have an image.

of someone who is beautiful and funny and talented and smart, always smart in

everything you do.

And then was it something where you wanted to do a movie and go, I don't

do anything that I've done. There's a kind of a warmth, there's a charm that's

embedded in nearly all of what you do. Did you just decide you want to do a

movie where like, let's go dark?

Well, I, we started thinking about the idea.

of telling this story a while ago, and there was a filmmaker I really admired

named Fabien Constant, and he's a French filmmaker.

He's a documentarian. He's known for making documentaries, and I really, I

his work for many, many years, and we were just trying to figure out what we

could do with him and what was interesting to him, and the script came

I didn't have one thing to say.

Like, no. I mean, I had no... I had a punctuation.

And I loved the script. And I had never played anybody like it. And I had lost

one of my closest friends to glioblastoma very recently.

And I had watched my friend.

I had seen her through her diagnosis. And I had watched the remainder of her

life, which was 14 months.

Exactly what the doctors tell my character, Vivian. And I just, I don't

really wanted to do it. And all the parts and pieces came together with such

ease, I couldn't kind of believe it. Everybody said yes. Every actor said yes

immediately. No one sat around. We didn't have to call people back twice.

Every DP, every production designer.

Came together. It was.

And we made the movie for less than $2 million in 16 days.

And it was.

One of the great, great professional experiences I've had in forever.

Wow. Rufus Wayne Wright wrote the music. Yeah, all in New York. No dressing

rooms, no trailers, nothing.

Staying on the set.

Yeah, or finding like an empty car to take my wig off or get undressed or a

stranger's apartment.

They're like, come on in. You can change here.

Bing bong. They were like, oh, my God.

You're like, no, I know. Yes, thank you so much. We sent flowers, candles.

Can I use your bathroom? Many thank you to everybody.

Provided shelter.

But I think it's a beautiful movie. I love it. Thank you. Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And here we go. It's a nice

David. Sarah Jessica Parker's new film, Here and Now, is currently in theaters

and streaming. We leave you again tonight with a story from earlier in the

as animated by acclaimed illustrator Stephen Brodner.

Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.

My dad, I always tell people, my dad had one piece of insight.

I fell in love with a girl in college, and my dad was a schoolteacher, and he

was constantly reading the paper and hidden, and the news was on, and the

Vietnam War when I was a kid. And I come home from college, I'm like 19 years

old, I fall in love with this girl in college, and I start to mine him for

information about the courtship and my mother and how that all comes about.

And he's very mute about that. And he's behind the paper. And whatever I say

leads up to the moment. The vault is going to open up. My father's going to

me love advice, romantic advice, sexual advice, some kind of advice for the

first time ever in my life. And he lowers the paper. He looks at me and

let me put it to you this way.

If you meet two women and you love them both very much, and one of them has a

lot of money, you'll know what to do.

And he puts the paper back over him and says. I thought that was it. It was the

only romantic advice.

Marry a woman with a lot of dough.