When you tell Sarah Jessica Parker her nose is sexy, she'll blush. She'll protest. She'll thank you. She'll ask if she can quote you. And then she'll tell you how her looks (she means the nose) were, for the better part of her career unacceptable by Hollywood beauty standards. All that's changed. Overnight, after an 18-year-career spanning stage (Annie), screen and tube (Square Pegs, A Year in the Life, Equal Justice), she's turned from ugly duckling to swan. Parker credits Steve Martin, who detected an infectious irrepressibility and cast her as SanDeE* in L.A. Story. Her next role was as the object of desire for both Nicolas Cage and James Caan in Honeymoon in Vegas, easily the best of the recent spate of my-money-for-your-wife films. Coming up: Striking Distance, with Bruce Willis (the first time she uses a gun), and Hocus Pocus, with Bette Midler (she plays a witch). Contributing Editor David Rensin met with Parker in Los Angeles when she flew in to attend the Oscars. Says Rensin: "Sarah wears a size one. That's all you need to know."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: Women poets of the 19th century acquired the affectation of three names. And now actresses: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Mary Stewart Masterson, Mary Louise Parker, Catherine Mary Stewart, Sarah Jessica Parker. Is this an accident of Screen Actors Guild registration? With whom are you most often confused?

Sarah Jessica Parker: These are all flowery, embroidered names. It makes sense that somebody who has that kind of name might find herself in the entertainment industry. The list goes on and on. I feel connected to Mary Louise Parker because our names are so close. I'm mistaken for her quite a bit. In fact, when I did a play last year in New York, the review in The New Yorker was accompanied by caricatures of the cast. But the one that was supposed to be of me was of Mary Louise by mistake.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: On average, do you break up with guys or do they break up with you? Do relationships go wrong a little at a time or all at once?

Sarah Jessica Parker: On the significant ones, if I count all six, I'm split even. Relationships generally go wrong a little at a time. There's an accumulative effect. It's as if someone is tapping you a lot for a really long time and you don't pay attention. They keep tapping you and you're like, "One second. One second. One second." Then all of a sudden they shove you. It's jarring. That's sort of what happens.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: In an interview with The Advocate, you said you didn't like sex. That you consider it a woman's obligation. Have you changed your mind?

Sarah Jessica Parker: It's interesting how things can be taken wrong. I actually said that when you're young or when you first have sex, it's not necessarily enjoyed. You don't know enough about it. You don't know enough about yourself or the other person. It's this strange, foreign thing. It's like doing a love scene. It's so technical and weird that there's little loving and natural and great about it. My first time, I didn't know enough about myself and I didn't know enough about sex. And I was way older than most people are when they first have sex. I was at the point of no return, where you can't ask questions.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: What would you do for David Letterman that you wouldn't do for any other man?

Sarah Jessica Parker: Can I pretend my boyfriend doesn't exist for a moment? David Letterman is incredible. I felt it the first time I saw him. I'm not talking about when his late-night show started. I mean years ago on his morning show. Few of us remember that. The theory in my family is that he looks like a ballet teacher I adored and revered, who was incredibly good to me. Beyond that, which is saying a lot already, David is incredibly bright and incredibly funny, which makes him perfectly sexy. On the other hand, he's such an odd man. David is the biggest mystery in America. I admire that he's maintained such privacy, but I feel I know more about Bill Clinton. When you do David's show you don't say hello to him before, at all. And you don't speak to him afterward. You leave when you're done. There's so much I want to know. When he drives home, does he eat dinner in Connecticut? Does he sleep late? If he stays up until 1:30, does that mean he sleeps until nine or ten, or does he get up and run? I know none of this stuff. His girlfriend must be a really neat woman. I admire her. He's so bright and interesting, she must be, too. Does she cook or is she really independent? He might be unbelievably difficult. I read everything I can get my hands on about him.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Unlike Letterman, you have publicly discussed the penises and sexual preferences of your boyfriends and co-stars. You also have said that you are a gay man. Is there a sense in which all healthy heterosexual women are in fact homosexual men?

Sarah Jessica Parker: Don't you think so? If we're going to speak in really broad terms? Homosexual men like other men. They seem to have a good eye, great aesthetic taste. They seem to be emotional. They're not particularly linear, like many heterosexual men tend to be. Their friendship is like the women's friendship thing. Doesn't it make perfect sense?