Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband Matthew Broderick are gearing up to act together, which she says hasn’t happened since 1996.
The two are set to star on Broadway in Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite,” in which they will play three different couples over the course of the show.
“We just made the big announcement last week,” Parker tells CNN, adding, “we worked together briefly in I think 1996 in a play, a musical on Broadway for a few months. That was the first and last time we’ve ever worked together. So this is a very different experience cause we’ll be working together from the beginning.”
Parker said the two discussed the play and decided the timing was right. She was just finished filming HBO’s “Divorce” and was able to balance a Broadway schedule with the multiple projects she’s working on under her “SJP” umbrella.
“You know, we’re both actors and we’re always looking for interesting parts to play and this play is funny and heartbreaking and it’s one of Neil Simon’s great achievements,” she says. “And so we I think are looking at it as actors and not as married people. It’s more so as an opportunity to play great roles. We each get to play three different roles and we’re really excited.”
Until it debuts in March, Parker will also be juggling multiple projects off-stage. To name just a few, she’s currently designing and promoting a popular shoe line called SJP, her own line of perfumes, choosing fiction books for her publishing imprint with Hogarth, and doing numerous speaking engagements.
She’s also just released a new wine, called “Invivo X, SJP,” which she happens to be very proud of, thank you very much. It was an unexpected collaboration for the actress, who was approached by Invivo & Co., a New Zealand-based wine company, to craft her own take on Sauvignon Blanc.
She gets approached to collaborate by various companies all the time, and says she turns down many, many projects. So why make a wine?
“I came to the conclusion that it would be a very exciting and very interesting experience,” Parker says. “And so I am typically a chardonnay drinker, and I was really excited to learn about and create one that I think follows the rules in some way but also is slightly rogue.”
She’s been happy to hear her creation has “been received so beautifully” in the wine world.
“It’s been so exciting to see how enthusiastic people are about it, especially real wine drinkers with lots of opinions,” she says, saying that when she cracked the first bottle herself she was “thrilled and much relieved.”
“I mean, I was terrified and really nervous at first to open the bottle, worried that I wouldn’t love it as much as I wanted to, but I’m just mad for it and it’s, it’s better than I remembered it being,” she says.
A wine, perfume, shoes. It all smells of “brand.” But Parker says no way.
“I’ve never called myself that,” she says. “I dissuade others from calling me that and I never talk about my brand or branding. I’m a person, a very curious person with a lot of interests and I’m a very, very hard worker and I’m involved in every step of everything I do and every meeting. And that’s the way I work. I’m interested in working hard and producing a quality product.”
When she does pick a project, she thinks of the customer who is spending their hard-earned money on her and her products and assures us she will never just slap her initials on something she doesn’t truly believe in.
“I say no much more than I say yes,” she says. “I’m always grateful to be asked, but not everything fits into my life or feels like something I might be able to do well or that I have the interest in or the time for. I’m very thoughtful about what I add to my day and to my life and what it means for my children and my family. So I say no, I say no a lot.”
Plus, acting is her first love. As for working together with Broderick for the first time in over two decades, Parker says the two are curious to discover “the process” of how they each will approach the play.
“We haven’t started rehearsals yet, so there’s not a lot I can say about the process yet because I just don’t know what it’s going to be,” she says, adding that she’s not nervous.
“Well, we are both actors who have been acting for 30-40 years. And he’s come to see me in plays, I’ve seen him in countless plays. So yes, I, I don’t foresee [nerves] being an issue,” she says.
She’s not sure about any pre-show ritual either, but knows for sure they won’t be sharing a dressing room, even if they are married.
“None ever does typically, no,” she laughs.
