20 Questions: Sarah Jessica Parker

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."

1.

[Q] 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?

[A] 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.

2.

[Q] 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?

[A] 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.

3.

[Q] 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?

[A] 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.

4.

[Q] Playboy: What would you do for David Letterman that you wouldn't do for any other man?

[A] 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.

5.

[Q] 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?

[A] 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?

6.

[Q] Playboy: What do you imagine is the best thing about being a man?

[A] Parker: Being able to propose. This is the one place where I belong in the Fifties. I don't think it's appropriate for a woman to propose to a man. The ball is in the man's court. That's probably totally backward in today's world, but, as a woman, proposing wouldn't be at all satisfying. It'd be like begging.

7.

[Q] Playboy: You've played women who have a million things going through their minds at once. Is there one subject that's most prominent among that sort of woman that immediately cuts through the distraction?

[A] Parker: Sure: marriage. Will I? Won't I? When will I? I ask this question of myself and all my friends. It's incredible that they all react the same way and suffer the same (continued on page 156)Sarah Jessica Parker(continued from page 127) way. We all want to be married. I don't even know if we know why, anymore. I guess we just want to settle down and have families. We want something other than ourselves to obsess about. My female friends are generally wonderful, giving people. They are funny and bright. They have a million things going on at once. But our desire for marriage can stop us right in our tracks.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Imagine your underwear drawer. What about it makes perfect sense to you, and what about it would cause confusion or surprise to someone who shouldn't be looking inside?

[A] Parker: They're all cotton. I'm just an old-fashioned girl. I was raised on Carter's underwear. Now I always wear Calvin Klein. What might surprise someone is that I have no lingerie. No one has ever given me lingerie. None of my boyfriends, even by mistake. I guess they figure it out. I've never even worn it, though I have a nightgown, which I guess is somewhere on the border. Anyway, I just don't understand the point of lingerie. Perhaps it's my downfall, but it's so much money, then you wear it once and show somebody. Then what? It serves no functional purpose. I know it's supposed to make a woman feel sexy under her clothes, but I think Calvins are as sexy as anything. So is a simple bra. Victoria's Secret has changed everything, though. It put the whammy on cotton underwear. It's not fair.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Fill in the blank: Republicans: Can't vote for them, can't_____.

[A] Parker: Can't sleep with them. [Laughs] I should probably have said, "Can't go to a museum with them." I'd like to think that I'm a bigger person than that. [Pauses] Nah.

10.

[Q] Playboy: When was the last time someone touched you with hands that made you think they knew something you didn't know?

[A] Parker: I do have a thing about hands. It's one of the first things I look at. I make a big thing about clean hands and feet. I'm compulsive. This started easily ten years ago. [Smiles] You know, Bill Clinton has the most beautiful hands. They're exquisite, truly beautiful. He has really long fingers, and his hands are enormous. He has really clean nails. They're almost like an artist's hands. They don't belong on a politician's body. Politicians have been taught so much about not pointing and about using their hands a certain way that they never seem comfortable. Clinton gesticulates a lot. People who are more artistically inclined tend to gesticulate a lot. Once you notice his hands, you never forget.

11.

[Q] Playboy: After you dated John F. Kennedy, Jr., you said you got blasted for it in the press. What did you mean? And how did you handle talking about his dad? Who brought it up first?

[A] Parker: Number one, it got an awful lot of coverage. I didn't expect that. It's as if I had lived in some sort of backward world until then. The attitude was either, "Wow, isn't she a lucky girl," or it was somehow turned into some sort of cheap thrill. Was it good or bad for him or me? It was never taken for what it was: a few dates. I'd spent 18 years building a career and having a life and overnight my dating him minimized all that. It became uninteresting compared to whom I was dating. Like, God, it must have been a lean week for him.

[A] We really only spoke about his father once and he brought it up. I've known a lot of people--granted, their fathers weren't leaders of a nation--whose parents have died. It's as uncomfortable to bring it up with them as it was with John. It's just something about losing a parent early in life. You don't know how to broach the subject. You don't know if they've dealt with it yet, if they have lots of sadness, or hurt or anger. So my awkwardness in talking about it was more because of that than who John's dad was. I didn't think of him as a celebrity, just as a guy whose dad had died.

12.

[Q] Playboy: When do you want to know the whole truth no matter what?

[A] Parker: When it involves my immediate future. I have this theory about men and women and having affairs. You can never control somebody. They're going to do what they're going to do. Men might have affairs, as women might have affairs, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. So I don't want to know about it unless it is jeopardizing my relationship. If it's a one-night stand, do what you need to do. I'm not endorsing it, I'm not encouraging, but what am I going to do? Naturally, there's a difference between compulsive one-night stands and having some sort of fling that means nothing once or twice. Once really being the limit for me. But trying to be very cool and progressive, I'd say once or twice. Compulsive behavior needs some attention. I mean, we're not talking about me washing my hands a lot, we're talking about compulsive sexual acts outside of the home. So just don't tell me unless it will involve my heart, in which case I think it's only fair that I know about it and have the opportunity to get out.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think that pet owners should allow their pets to be spectators of human sexuality?

[A] Parker: My boyfriend had a dog first, which is why I got a dog. I never even liked dogs until I met his dog. Dogs can be incredible. They can do funny, wonderful things and have their own unique traits that you think are so incredibly brilliant. And human. But every now and then they show you that they are not bright at all. For instance, there's a ball behind a gate. Now, they could walk around and get the ball in a matter of 30 seconds. Instead, they paw and scrape and cry at the gate and you realize they're not human at all. If a pet had a brain that functioned more like a human's, it would not be appropriate to have sex while it was in the room. But that said, I wouldn't be uncomfortable doing it in front of the dog. I'm unbelievably comfortable with my pet.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Can you explain to the television-and-movie generation the reasons to attend live theater?

[A] Parker: It's the same reason you like going to basketball games: beautiful movement and unbelievable pace. It's live and you get to experience it like nobody else does. Each night is unique. It will always belong to the actor and that night's audience. Beyond that, the experience is too profound for words. I feel like I have to do a play every year. It's a fundamental of my life, like sleeping with sheets on my bed.

15.

[Q] Playboy: In Honeymoon in Vegas, Nicolas Cage jumped out of a plane with the Flying Elvises. Is there anyone you'd like to see pushed out of a plane?

[A] Parker: That's a really violent act and I'm not a proponent of violence. [Smiles] That said, Randall Terry. I've long been an advocate for the issue of choice, trying to make certain that it stays our choice. And now, I'm even more so, given what happened to Dr. David Gunn in Florida. People from Operation Rescue weren't horrified at the act. They weren't embarrassed and humiliated by a person of their ilk--not necessarily a member of Operation Rescue--doing such a thing, so they didn't come out and say, "This is horrible" and "We don't support acts of violence to get our point across." It was an irresponsible, heinous act. And it's completely contradictory to what they say they believe in: saving life.

16.

[Q] Playboy: What is so completely bullshit about your job that you've been dying to talk about it?

[A] Parker: That there are all these people who run around and do nothing but get you water. I don't get that at all. That's bullshit. That's a waste of money. All they ever say is, "Do you want anything to drink?" "Can I get you something?" "Can I get you a chair?" In the theater no one ever asks you once if you need water, if you need a chair, if you need a lunch. And everybody does fine. No one starves, no one's dehydrated and everyone has a place to sit. Everyone complains about the cost of movies. This is one reason why.

17.

[Q] Playboy: You're one of a number of actresses who played Little Orphan Annie onstage. Any good Sandy stories you'd like to tell?

[A] Parker: The truth about Sandy was that Sandy was, by the time I took over the role--which was maybe a year into the play--the most blasé, big-movie-star type I'd ever met in my life. He ate between shows every day at Gallagher's, the big steak house. He was pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing. There was one point in the show where I'm singing Tomorrow to him. The policeman comes by and says, "What are you doing, little girl? Whose dog is that?" I say, "It's my dog." He says, "Really? What's his name?" I look at the dog and go, "His name? His name is...his name is"--and I have no idea what the dog's name is. I say, "His name is Sandy, yeah. See, I call him Sandy because of his bright sandy color." He says, "Right, Sandy. OK, let's see him answer." I say, "You mean when I call him?" He says, "Yes. When you call him. By his name, Sandy." So I go like this, "Come here, boy. Come here, Sandy." And of course there's just no way in hell a strange dog is supposed to answer to the name Sandy. But of course he comes running over and jumps on me, and I go, "Good Sandy. Good old Sandy." Well, every night Sandy would be bored out of his mind and he'd lope over and I'd have to reach down and pick up his paws and put them on me, as though he'd jumped on me, and say, "Good Sandy. Good old Sandy." Then he'd walk offstage really slowly. Sandy was the kind of dog who would have loved somebody to bring him water and a chair. He'd have wanted a huge trailer. Sandy's dead now. He passed away three years ago. It was quite devastating.

18.

[Q] Playboy: In Striking Distance you handle a gun for the first time. Some actresses handle a gun very well. Is this a natural facility? Is this nature or nurture?

[A] Parker: Either you have the capacity to learn it and to make yourself look really good or you don't. And the funny thing is that your political beliefs have nothing to do with how comfortable you feel holding a gun or how good you can look. I would have assumed that I had no business holding a gun and that I was going to look really stupid--not to say that I don't. But I found a way to make it like an appendage, like something I've always had. It was strange. I also discovered I had good aim. No one had to tell me what to do with this gun. When Bruce Willis was helping me, I refused to show him anything I knew. I let him show me as though I didn't have a clue because I was embarrassed. My parents and I are so antigun, I was ashamed. And I can't tell you how much I hate them. I'm terribly afraid of guns. Yet I became so comfortable with the gun in my hand that I would gesticulate with it on the set. People kept backing away from me.

19.

[Q] Playboy: In L.A. Story you sang the praises of the high colonic. Did you research that aspect of the movie?

[A] Parker: I've never had one. But at the time I was living with Robert Downey, Jr.--I don't think he'd be too embarrassed if I told you this--he has. The enema sort. All I needed to know was what it was. I didn't need to have personally experienced it. Give me the lingerie first, then maybe, after a few cocktails, I would consider it. But I don't think so.

20.

[Q] Playboy: In a pitch-black room, how do you tell the difference between an actor and a regular guy?

[A] Parker: An actor would say, "How do I look?"

hollywood's favorite sprite gushes about high colonics and gay men, and explains how victoria's secret ruined everything

"I wouldn't be uncomfortable doing it in front of the dog. I'm unbelievably comfortable with my pet."