Sarah Jessica Parker has revealed she once threatened to leave a set due to a male cast member's 'inappropriate' behaviour. Photo / Getty Images
Sarah Jessica Parker has revealed she once threatened to leave a set due to a male cast member's 'inappropriate' behaviour. Photo / Getty Images
Sarah Jessica Parker says she once told producers she would leave the set to end the "uncomfortable" and "inappropriate" sexually-charged behaviour of a powerful actor.
The Sex and The City actress, 54, recalled her experience as part of a larger discussion in the wake of the #MeToo movement, during an interview on NPR's Fresh Air last week.
She didn't reveal which film or TV project she was working on when the incident occurred, but said her agent bought her a one way ticket to get out of the city where she was filming in the event the situation didn't improve, the Daily Mail reports.
Parker is most famous for her role as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, which she played from 1998 until 2004 alongside Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis.
Set in New York City, the romantic comedy drama follows the lives of a group of four women who often confide in each other during testing times in their lives.
In the series, Sarah plays New York City columnist Carrie, Kristin, 54, portrays the role of art dealer Charlotte York Goldenblatt, Cynthia, 53, is career-minded lawyer Miranda Hobbes, while Sarah's eldest gal pal Samantha Jones is played by Kim, 62.
Actresses Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall in their roles as Charlotte, Carrie, Miranda and Samantha on Sex in the City. Photo / Getty Images
She has also starred in a string of big screen hits, playing leading roles in films The Family Stone, I Don't Know How She Does It and New Years' Eve.
And despite her star status on one of TV's hottest shows of the era, screen star Sarah said she could still feel a sense of gender imbalance on some of the projects she worked on.
"I think no matter how evolved or how modern I thought I was ... I didn't feel entirely in a position — no matter what my role was on set — I didn't feel as powerful as the man who was behaving inappropriately," she explained.
She added: "It strikes me as just stunning to say out loud, because there were plenty of occasions where it was happening and I was in a different position and I was as powerful.
"I mean, I had every right to say, 'This is inappropriate.' I could have felt safe in going to a superior."
Parker said that in one instance, she had her agent let producers know she was going to leave production and not return if she continued to feel made "uncomfortable" by the movie star.
"And, in fact, I will say, when there was a situation with somebody and I did go to my agent.
"I felt I was no longer able to convey how uncomfortable this was making me, how inappropriate it was," she said, adding that "within hours, everything had changed".
Parker said her agent made clear that she would quit the production if the conduct was allowed to continue.
"He said to them, 'If this continues, I have sent her a ticket, a one-way ticket out of this city' - where I was shooting - 'and she will not be returning.'"
"I didn't have to listen to jokes about me or my figure or what people thought they could talk me into doing – you know, all these men, all these men," she continued. "That stopped."
Parker added that it was clear the instigator of the harassment wasn't ever going to change because he had seemingly been that way for a long time.
"He was baked, meaning his personality; it was cooked," she said. "And he was a formed person, and that wasn't going to change. But I felt certainly better and safer, like I could finish what I had agreed to do."
Parker said she revisited what she had endured earlier in her career in wake of the #MeToo movement.
Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband Matthew Broderick. Photo / Getty Images
The #MeToo movement emerged in 2017 in response to multiple sexual misconduct allegations made against disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men in Hollywood.
Many actresses, including Rose McGowan, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lawrence, have claimed that they've been sexually harassed in the past.
The hashtag "#MeToo" was popularised by Alyssa Milano as means for women to share their stories of abuse and harassment on social media.
Parker explained: "It really wasn't, I would say, until about six or eight months ago that I started recognising countless experiences of men behaving poorly, inappropriately".
"And all the ways that I had made it possible to keep coming to work or to remain on set, or to simply ... just push it down, push it away, find a little space for it and move on."
In her personal life, Parker shares son James Wilkie, 16, and twins Tabitha and Loretta, ten, with her husband Matthew Broderick.
