Sarah Jessica Parker Talks Childbirth and New York City

Sarah Jessica Parker recently sat down for an interview with Net-a-Porter's The Edit. Here are some of the highlights:

On childbirth:
"If I could revisit one moment in my life, it would be the birth of my children, definitely. I only got to give birth once [Parker’s twin girls, Marion Loretta and Tabitha Hodge, now seven, were born via a surrogate]. James is like, why do you always want to talk about that?! I’m like, because it’s the greatest! There is this suspended animation around [birth]: everything goes away; the entire world is sucked up; time suspends. It’s just you and, in my case, my husband, and this child, and it’s absolute euphoria.”

On her childhood:
“When I arrived in New York City in 1976, the first thing I did was audition for a play. Literally straight out of the van. My [step] father slid the Volkswagen bus door open and said, ‘See you later.’ We lived in Ohio and, because we couldn’t afford to fly to New York, we would drive. The route my parents took crossed over the George Washington Bridge, heading east into Manhattan, and about midway across, you could look south and see this view down the Hudson River with all of Manhattan laid before you, like someone had rolled it out. And we would always sing – I don’t know why because it makes no sense – ‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean / My Bonnie lies over the sea...’ I can’t really convey how sweeping and cinematic that moment was.”

On how New York City has changed over the years:
“MY FAMILY AND I HAD BEEN TO NEW YORK A FEW TIMES because my [biological] father lived there, and it was always memorable. But I remember one summer, we came back home to Cincinnati and we were at my grandparents’ swim club, where my brother Toby and I were both on the diving team. I was jumping on the board and I turned to Toby and said, ‘I can’t believe we were in New York City just yesterday!’ I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I still think about the city that way. I suppose it’s a little bit like when you can’t believe that you don’t have to go to school anymore. It’s not like the city is without its flaws and faults; I mean, there are big problems. And it’s not the city that promises everything anymore, it can’t be. People don’t come to New York and live as a ballet dancer or an artist or a writer, or an engineer or an architect or a teacher – they can’t. I mean, they can’t [afford to] live in Brooklyn, you know? There is no place to pioneer anymore, and that’s a real problem. So in terms of that promise, coming here to live your dream, I would say that’s extinct in some ways. But the relationship that you can have with the city, its uniqueness, hasn’t changed. I don’t think New York is always pretty. It’s not as old as London – it doesn’t have as many important buildings, we didn’t keep things, we didn’t cherish or protect landmarks – so we don’t have all that beauty, nor do we have the history. But there is something. It has a sparkle.”

On regrets:
"I wish I had known to take more pictures. I should have photographed every fitting of Sex and the City; every shoe I ever tried on anywhere in the world, ever! I should have shot those experiences, but I didn’t want to intrude on it or ask, ‘Do you mind if I take your picture?’ Or, ‘Do you mind if I document this?’ Oh, I should have taken more pictures.”