Sarah Jessica Parker isn't in the mood for talking about ageing. “I am so confused by the fact that the majority of men my age are simply never asked about ageing," she tells me candidly, as she sits opposite me on a sofa in an East London hotel.
"We all wake up, have a million things going on, and just need to get on with our days – I don’t understand the emphasis that is placed on the pondering of ageing,” she adds, which seems slightly off script given I'm here to discuss her new role as an ambassador for ROC, a pro-ageing skincare brand and the first to stabilise retinol so women could safely use this ingredient at home.
She concedes that she'd rather choose skincare over tweakments or surgery, though. “I love that people choose to do what they want, and find a way that makes them feel better when they walk out the door,” the 58-year-old star of Footloose and Sex And The City, notes. “They [cosmetic treatments and surgery] are just not something I choose to do. Also I’m an actor – I’m meant to be sharing emotion and communicating with my face, which for me needs to move. This is just how I feel for me, and absolutely doesn’t mean the same applies for someone else. We are all different and I love that about women.”
If you think of the TV and film industry as a constellation of stars, Sarah Jessica Parker is surely one of the brightest. As a producer, business woman and award-winning actress (four Golden Globe Awards, two Emmys and a Tony Award) with a stellar career that spans over 40 years, it's not hard to see why she prioritises acting over Botox.
Despite the fact that there are three decades between us age-wise, I also mention that I'm confused with Western society's negative obsessession with age. I'm African by heritage, and in my culture, age is to be celebrated and often positively correlates to wisdom.
She adds: “Everybody chimes in on someone's figure, their face, their nose, their hair, their weight. And so to me the pressure now is not from Hollywood. The pressure is from the human race and it's as unhealthy as the Hollywood pressure. We are as unkind to each other as Hollywood ever was to women.”
When it comes to beauty, it’s clear that SJP’s upbringing with her seven siblings in Nelsonville, Ohio has influenced her approach. “The entire family, so ten people, shared one bathroom," she says. "It wasn't like I was sneaking in and watching my mother get ready. If she got the bathroom [to herself] she probably locked the door and we weren't witness to her. Me and skin? I wasn't thoughtful about it.”
So she’s grown to take a very simplistic approach to skincare: “Simplicity and efficacy for me is everything. When you are working on set, you are wearing a lot of makeup, which even to apply for me is a lot of valuable time. So I like to keep my routine basic and effective.”
When I asked her what beauty or self-care advice she would give to her younger self, she tells me: “I'm not really someone who participates in the self-care conversation. I don't really like it. I don't think that most real working women, working parents – people who are holding down two or three jobs, literally – are in a position to think about self-care. I think just having five minutes alone, never mind having five minutes that don't involve worry, concern about your children, money, paying bills, feeding yourself, or others…To me it’s a topic that is so out of touch.”
Most celebrities have jumped on the self-care bandwagon, posting elaborate routines in marble-clad bathrooms or walk-in closets. So as a Black woman, I found some comfort in witnessing someone with so much celebrity leverage having the language to describe privilege so eloquently.
SJP's jaded feelings on the subject can be traced back to her childhood and her mother. “I never thought about self-care as a young person. I was working from age eight and my mother never had time for self-care,” she adds. “It feels like it really comes off as privilege, maybe?”
“I'm sure she found ways of getting out of the house and being with a friend, and that was her version of self-care, reading a book,” she continues. “If she would be driving us to dance lessons or school, she always had a book in her lap, always. My mom stopped the car at a red light. She would look down, she'd be reading and we'd say: ‘Mommy, the light's turned green.’ And I think I have the same thing. I always have a book with me,” she says as we stare at her encyclopaedia-sized novel on the coffee table.
When Sarah Jessica Parker isn't busy running an empire, or getting lost in the pages of a great book like her mother, she tends to her children (she has one son James, 20, and twin daughters, Marion and Tabitha, 14, with husband and fellow actor Matthew Broderick). “Motherhood taught me to be better at being patient and that the things I'm telling my children are important, are sometimes the very things I need to be thinking about for myself.” In other words, taking your own advice? “Exactly!,” she says, laughing.
SJP is also no stranger to dealing with misogyny in her day-to-day life. “I think it's more disarming to not be hysterical,” she says: “Nothing is more angering than being belittled, being diminished by a man because you're a woman, especially as a business person. And it happens all the time. It's unbelievable. I mean, I had to say to somebody yesterday, ‘With all due respect sir’. By the way, it [comes] from other women too. It’s important to give people a chance to evolve, to change. People have been speaking in certain ways for a long time. I have to believe that a better part of them wants to change. It's just scary and they aren’t necessarily equipped right away.”
Instagram content
Sarah Jessica Parker may not be the loudest voice in the room, but she sees power in her quiet leadership and guidance. Sharing that the biggest misconception people have about her is “maybe that I'm not serious? Interesting? Yeah. That I'm kind of souffle, more than substantial.”
It's certainly not the impression you get when she reveals the life advice she would pass on to the next generation. “Work hard. And I mean 16, 18 hour days with no pay for years at a time,” she says. “Be willing to be the person that's breaking down the boxes, licking the envelopes. Be the person that's first there and last to leave and don't look for a title, look for experience. I'm much better for having worked hard, working in the theatre for $35 a week, for $200 a week for years and years and starting my business, doing all the work myself. If you are not willing to work hard and really commit to a culture of hard work, success will elude you. And that can mean a personal success that nobody else knows about. It doesn't have to be a success that everybody's celebrating in the world of social media.”
I express that I truly believe that hard work doesn't necessarily correlate to success. In fact we all know people who have worked really hard for their entire lives and haven't been prized with the serendipity that others (that are sometimes blessed with great privilege such as: race, gender, or network) may have. She agrees, but the message stands on being ready to accept luck into your life, and hard work is the perfect way to stay ready.
While she's aware of the quick success stories you get from social media, she stresses that this is not a true reflection of life: “I’m just concerned that folks don't understand that it might be hard work and that a meteoric experience to success is not necessarily sustainable. It's like scar tissue – it's the buildup. You become better equipped to be a boss, an employer, to be a better partner and friend for having had experiences.”
Instagram content
SJP moves seamlessly between raging against the machine, sprinkling in some home truths, dispensing thoughtful advice and sharing beauty must-haves. In this case, ROC Hydrate + Plump SPF 30 Daily Moisturiser and some eyeshadow for a smoky, “dirty” eye.
She's also full of surprises, especially her love-affair with dark masculine scents – coming from a woman wearing an elegant A-line dress and bright pink heels. “I'm mixing it up between the old version of Guerlain Vetiver, which is a men's fragrance, and the Diptique Eau de Rihla,” she explains.
That’s one thing we have in common and yet, ironically, I sheepishly chose something softer and more floral for our interview. “NO! You should have done your own thing today. I wish you had!” she tells me. So the next time you catch a whiff of my loudest, muskiest scent, just know, it's Sarah Jessica Parker approved…
For more from Glamour UK Beauty Writer Shei Mamona, follow her on Instagram @sheimamona
