| By Fred Topel
In Theaters December 16
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After five years of motherhood and pay TV stardom, Sarah Jessica Parker is back in the movies. The Family Stone, her first film since 2000’s State and Main, casts Parker as Meredith, a woman visiting her boyfriend’s family for Christmas. This uptight city girl doesn’t fit in with the liberal suburban clan so they make the holidays hell for her.
Fortunately, Parker never had such horror stories with the Broderick family, but that’s not to say that the dinner table is always pleasant. “They weren’t family necessarily but I’ve been at tables where I’ve thought [ill thoughts],” she said. “But my husband has a lower threshold for that than I do. My husband does not suffer fools. For me, it’s humorous because I get lost in his rage. I’ve seen him actually clench a fist under a table, not that he would ever [do anything] but just this feeling of really not caring for somebody, buffoons or jackasses.”
Getting back into the film world also took Parker out of her comfort zone. “There are a lot of young actors whom I'm completely unfamiliar with, but I haven't worked with them. It's scary starting new all the time. I was with the same people so happily for so long and while it was a hard decision to leave, every time, it's like being in the 11th grade, over and over, being the new kid all the time. It’s like you’re the new kid and everybody has already been together. I remember the first day [on Family Stone], I called home and said, ‘I think they know each other and they're very confident.’”
Meredith may come across as unsympathetic, so audiences may side with the Stones for abusing her. She refuses hugs and makes comments construed as homophobic, but she still tries to win them over.
“I pretty much was trying to intuit what Tom wanted me [to do]constantly. I thought she was very complicated and very uncomfortable and uncomfortable in her own skin, like a wreck of a person. The one thing she was successful at was business and I think she thought she could apply that same theory to human beings, which as we know, you can't shove them around like numbers. She's ill-equipped and knowing all that, and Tom giving me some handy little ideas of the physical life of Meredith or posture, it was helpful especially in the beginning of shooting. I remember meeting Diane in the foyer and I couldn't move the way I'd naturally move towards somebody. Tom was right about all those things, and I loved them. It was so hard to meet people like that physically, to not have some fluidity in your body. It was like if she moved, she might break in half she was so brittle. For me it was helpful.”
The hair helped too as Meredith ties hers back in an impenetrable bun. “That’s the closest I’m ever going to get to actual surgery. It was only uncomfortable because I couldn’t lay down, like if people went back to their trailers while they were setting up lights, I like to lay down and, out of respect for the hairdresser, I just couldn’t lay down.”
Though not as extreme, Parker has been known to tie her hair back in real life. “I actually do because, as I age, I’m more appreciative of what a bun can do for somebody. So, I actually love a tight bun. But, I don’t usually go out with a tight bun planning to lie down. I use it differently but I loved wearing it for the movie.”
To Parker, Meredith wasn’t all bad. “What’s redeeming about her is she’s a human being. People are abrasive generally speaking, those I’ve met, because they are terrified. All that kind of bravado is all about terrible vulnerabilities that you are too afraid communicate. And, she’s not a murderer, she’s just someone who is not great with interpersonal relationships. She’s functioned quite well, only digging so deep. That’s what makes her comfortable but I think that makes her very tender at the same time. I liked her. I found her human. She doesn’t make a great case for herself immediately.”
But we certainly shouldn’t judge her for not hugging a family of complete strangers. That’s personal space. “I tend to not be as physically demonstrative with people I don’t know as well. I’m always a little bit thrown when people move toward me, especially when there’s a person of European [descent]. There’s the both sides. I’m always a little bit confused. It’s really elegant but I tend to not.”
It will take many films to even begin shaking people’s memories of Sex and the City, and such a popular show may never go away. But Parker is not worried about any typecast. She’s just moving on.
“I loved playing Carrie Bradshaw. It was an unbelievable time in my life. I left it out of affection because I held it in such high regard and the reason I stopped doing it is because I wanted to do different things and I’d always thought of myself as a journeyman and missed that kind of work in my life. I missed being challenged in that way and being terrified and working with new people and learning again. When I finished this movie, I said to my friends at home, taking my temperature all the time, ‘Gosh I haven’t learned anything’. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t learned anything in a long time. We were all really comfortable with what we were doing on Sex and the City and it was great. That’s a wonderful thing to experience is really feeling comfortable because you hope to bring that to a new experience but I just hadn’t learned. So that’s what I want to do if I’m lucky enough, is to have experiences where I feel terrified and challenged and learn.”
The Famiy Stone opens December 16. |
