Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An actress best known as Samantha Jones, the PR mogul with a liberal attitude towards sex, in the TV series Sex and the City.
On the island
Eight records
I think it's not just turning you on sex sexually. I think it's just turning you on as a person. And how if you're turned on to the sensual parts of life, you can have a wonderful meal and be turned on. You can put on a fabulous cashmere sweater and be turned on. It's life to me as a sensual entity, as a sensual experience.
This is really a tribute to my mom. My mom's first big well, two loves. One was Errol Flynn and one was Frank Sinatra. And this was always playing in our house. And I just ... I guess it's sort of like the acting bug for me. I got you under my skin.
My Favorite ThingsFavourite
I guess because uh this is a really beautifully constructed song, but what John Coltrane does is he makes it his own. It's sort of uh his improvisation of something that everyone knows, and he makes it unexpected and quite thrilling.
He represents a rawness, I think, that and he was also one of the first songwriters, singers that really spoke on such an emotional truth. He was also Canadian and a poet and an artist. And I was very, very excited when I first heard his record.
Oh, I guess because I think it's what everyone needs. The times in my life where I have stood up to my to to who I am and what I believe, those have been the happiest times of my life.
Billie Holiday & Arthur Herzog Jr.
I guess um this song has always meant a tremendous amount because it's about making it for yourself. And I've always been very proud about uh the fact that, you know, my family gave me a tremendous uh support and uh encouragement, but I am the child that got his own.
To me this song is ... is about being ... in in your body, in your selfhood, but also uh wanting to encapsulate someone else or something else. And that's uh I guess that's what me being an artist is about.
The keepsakes
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:47Why did you turn down the role of Samantha [in Sex and the City] three times?
I had just turned forty, and I really thought to myself, this is a one-node character, and no one's going to believe me playing this character. And I had I had played, you know, sex sirens before and those kind of roles weren't really coming to me anymore.
Presenter asks
6:13Did [the book Sex and the City] touch into your personal anxieties as a single woman?
Yeah, it did. It really did. Because what it really basically talked about that women are great, and men, there are no men. And most of them are Peter Pan's, or they're so macho that they're into their new jet or their 18-year-old girlfriend. So where does this leave me? And I thought, I don't want to see a show about that. I'm living it. It's painful.
Presenter asks
7:46Why did you prefer the stage over film?
I just thought that the parts written for women on stage were so much better ... than they were on film at that point in my life. And I just thought to myself, theater is my home. I love a live audience, but I also love good writing. So I basically did film and television to support my theater habit.
Presenter asks
10:51What kind of child were you, and would anyone have spotted the potential performer in you?
Oh, absolutely. Yes. My sister, my older sister was very retiring and shy. She would always hide behind my mum's skirt. But me, I wanted I was always asking the question, why? Why not? Why not? Why can't why not? Why can't I go up on the stage? You know. One of my earliest recollections of performing is being in a Christmas pageant and saying to my dad, I want to sing. I want to get up there and sing jingle bells.
Presenter asks
26:08How did you feel about not having children?
No, I think that there's so many ways that a woman can become maternal and motherly in this world other than physically having a child. I was always going to have kids, but it was going to be, well, when well, this isn't working here, or this is a man, this is a great boyfriend, but I don't wouldn't want him to be the father of my child. And there was this whole period of time of, yes, I'm going to do it, but not now. And then suddenly, not now was never. And then I thought to myself, well, is this going to be okay with me in 20 years? And I thought, well, what other ways is for me to be in the world a mother?
“I think that the word promiscuity, you know, it it it just hearing you say it, it conjures up really negative connotation. It's a judgment. It is a judgment. And I think that that was the one thing that this character had, was she had no judgment of anything. Whatever her appetite had wanted at that time, she experienced it.”
“I do believe that sex is an important recreation, but I don't practice it on the same with the same variety that she does. I don't think anybody does. No, I think the similarities are that we're both courageous and we both stand up for ourselves and we don't take a lot of crap. And that's something I think that starts with liking yourself and knowing yourself.”
“I miss Samantha. I really do miss her. And I miss the whole experience of the the city and ... Not so much the sex. I'm fine privately, but ... But I do miss her her uh shenanigans. I do miss her Joie de Vive. I I miss that terribly, yes, I do.”