Sarah Jessica Parker returns to HBO on Sunday night with a show that can be considered the opposite of Sex and the City, which was about the ups and downs of four women and their friendships even as they searched for love. Well, at least three of them did — not so much Samantha (Kim Cattrall).
The new series Divorce is about the end of a marriage after more than a decade and two children. Westchester wife and working mother Frances (Parker) has suddenly begun to reassess her life and her strained relationship with her husband (Thomas Haden Church). But she soon discovers that making a clean break and a fresh start is harder than she thought.
At a press day for the series, Parker talks about getting to know Frances and the choices she makes, how smart people make bad choices when divorcing, and more.
What were the ways that you could identify with Frances without having to draw from your own marriage?
I think anybody who has or wants very much to save their life and to figure it out is someone that you can relate to. It’s not so much that I have been in her position, but I certainly understand somebody who feels that they want to find fulfillment and they need to rescue themselves and their life.
I think also being a mother who is concerned about making the right choices for her children and handling something that is potentially so painful, how do you talk about it in a way that’s not patronizing and is careful? It that mattered a lot to me how we talked about it.
It’s not necessary to relate to a character at all. I don’t think Jimmy Gandolfini related to Tony Soprano. I think that’s always a question where I’m like, “I don’t know.” Do you relate to every subject you write about? No! I think you throw yourself towards something because it interests you.
I don’t really relate to Frances, her life is different; she’s a much more withholding, chilly person than I am. She’s not very buoyant; she can be mean and angry, and I love playing someone like that. I don’t need to relate to somebody. In fact, what I want very much is to not relate to somebody.
At the end of the day, can you learn anything from her?
Is it necessary to always learn? I don’t know. I think there’s a really amazing thing if you get to do television long enough, where you’re basically in an alternate universe. It’s the weirdest thing. Like you’re actually living a completely different life for a long time. I don’t know that you’re in a position when you’re in the midst of it to recognize what you’re learning. I think you’re in the day-to-day of living a life, and you’re just having these experiences.
When you spend a holiday fighting with your fake husband and having a fake divorce, do you go home to your real family and say, “Let’s not fight over the toilet paper roll or…”
No, because the things that make me not want to fight about things are things that are happening in the world. What happens on the set doesn’t typically … although I will say on Sex and the City having played friendships for so long, the fingerprints that were all over me were this devotion to friendship.
I can tell you that right now I’ve only spent a year producing this show and playing this part; which means four months, which means there’s all this work… it’s a thoughtful process right now. I’m not trying to elude the question at all, but right now I’m just trying to sort it out.
What story were you looking to tell with Divorce?
I think I just wanted to tell the story of marriage. I’d been working on this idea for four years prior to meeting [creator and executive producer] Sharon [Horgan]. We’d gone through another writer. I didn’t care about people responding well to choices Frances made. I think marriages are incredibly complicated. Smart, thoughtful, evolved people make choices that are not necessarily smart, actually. Frances has committed 17 years to this marriage. She says they’ve been through counseling; she’s really sort of devoted herself to making it work and she’s weary. She makes some choices that some of us might not, but she’s very real.
She’s a very real person, and I think the more you spend time with her, the more you’ll learn about who she is. Like we always do in a friendship, where we meet and know somebody, the more time we spend with them, the more they reveal of who they are. You might still not care for the decision making, but you will certainly have a better sense of why they might have arrived at that decision.
Did you learn anything about divorce in the process?
That I did. What I learned is that it is rife with all sorts of people that relish it and enjoy it. There’s things about it that friends enjoy because it allows them to voice feelings and share thoughts about spouses that they were harboring. I think it can bring out some selfish qualities in people. I think really smart people do ridiculously awful things. I think people are hurtful when they never thought they would be. I don’t think Frances ever intended in this marriage, or in this attempt at divorce, to be unkind or malicious, or be violent in any way. But I think it becomes very battle like.
I’ve had family members go through divorces. I have close friends or people that have considered it. It can be a very emotionally charged experienced.
What have you learned about making your marriage work?
Not anything from this.
Divorce premieres Sunday, Oct. 9 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.
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