Sarah Jessica just so over Sex

Rachel McAdams (left), Diane Keaton (centre) and Sarah Jessica Parker in a scene from 'The Family Stone'.

For many television stars an inevitable slow death follows the demise of a beloved hit sitcom - and few exceptions survive. Sarah Jessica Parker, synonymous with her role as Carrie Bradshaw, the sassy columnist from Sex and the City, turns up in The Family Stone, with a cast that includes Diane Keaton, Claire Danes, Luke Wilson and Dermot Mulroney.

With great reviews for her first role since the revered TV show, it looks like Parker won't be on the casualty list.

On re-entering the world of film, Parker says candidly, "It was terrifying and challenging, but that was the reason I stopped doing Sex and the City. I wanted to do something radically different from the TV show and work with people I'd never worked with before. It was an amazing experience".

The movie, directed by newcomer Thomas Bezucha, is about two families and how they deal with a prospective marriage.

Rather than her usual ebullient self, Parker plays the tightly wound fiancee of Mulroney. whose family is less than overjoyed about his future wife.

"I thought Meredith Morton was radically different from Carrie Bradshaw," says Parker, explaining why she took the role. "She's such a rigid, intractable person and doesn't have people skills. She is an enormously successful business person but a wreck of a person."

"Meredith is very tailored and finished. She comes down for breakfast dressed while everyone else potters around in their pyjamas. She's all about the surface of things and never digging, which is the exact opposite of Carrie, who was just mining stuff all the time."

Recalling her own experience of her family meeting Matthew Broderick before they were married in 1997, Parker says: "My family is much more hospitable and they don't make strangers work so hard to be accepted like they do in this movie. And for Matthew, his father died way before I came along. I met his mother before we started dating so there was never that panic introduction situation."

Parker, 40, is not conventionally beautiful and certainly didn't come from the right side of the tracks, but she has managed to become one of the world's most sophisticated fashion icons, and the darling of many couture designers.

In her Sex and the City. role, Parker unintentionally became a model for the envy of legions of thirtysomething single American woman.

But in real life she's not the brassy, confident, club-hopping, cocktail-sipping fashionista.

"I'm very far from that character. And as far as Hollywood is concerned and what is the norm I don't like to go out, and despite what people may think I don't like to shop. It's just not how my life functions."

Parker is often seen with Broderick and their 3-year-old son James, walking through the streets of Manhattan or playing in the park - with no nanny.

"My son is our priority and - as any working mother will tell you - it's complicated.

"But I'm aware that I'm lucky in that I can afford healthcare and really good childcare, unlike a lot of working women.

"I think women generally like to be all things to all people and make certain everybody's taken care of. I don't mean that in a martyr way, but I think we all try to do our best."

Despite her relationships with desirable, high-profile men - those she has dated include Robert Downey jnr and John F. Kennedy jnr - Parker loves the quiet life with her family.

It was reported that she is one of the wealthiest women in New York - apart from her Sex and the City income she was said to have made $38 million modelling for Gap, and she has her own perfume. "How hilarious is that?" says. "It's simply not true. No way.

"When I read that I was simultaneously insulted and flattered. If I had that kind of money, I would be a very proud and very public philanthropist. I would fund every library that's been shut down in our city. I would fund every ballet company. I would change the public schools in our city.

"I would have a will that dictated that every child in New York would be educated."

But there is one thing Parker has in common with her TV persona: "I can't imagine a time in my life when I would want to leave New York City. You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming from that city. And Matthew is the same. It's our home."

Parker is far from frivolous with her money which may be attributable to her background. Born in Nelsonville, Ohio, she is the fourth of eight children. She grew up in relative poverty, raised by her schoolteacher mother and her often-out-of-work stepfather.

Parker helped support the family at a young age and in 1976 won her first Broadway role and the family moved to New Jersey to encourage Jessica in her career.

In 1979 came her first big break playing the title role in Annie on Broadway.

Maturing into a working actress, she enjoyed a run of TV and movie roles.

When she returned to TV as Carrie Bradshaw, her life changed forever. Now, with Sex and the City still popular as re-runs, Parker has several film projects on the boil. "I'm in a total panic about my next film, Spinning Into Butter, where I play a college dean. It's a very hard role and I don't know how I'm going to manage.

"The quality of actors I'm working with is so great. My first scene is with Miranda Richardson, which is completely horrifying to me because I love her and she's unbelievable and I want to be as good as her."

Parker has just finished filming Failure to Launch, a comedy with Matthew McConaughey and Kathy Bates, and will be making two more films next year, Whistle, from David Mamet, and Slammer, directed by Adam Shankman.

"There won't be a Sex and the City film because some of us wanted to do it and others didn't, sadly," she says.

"I am busy and as long as I feel I'm giving my son everything he needs then I guess it's better to be engaged than not to be. Sometimes I worry about being overextended, but you know, as my friend always says, you sleep when you're dead."

Parker is unlikely to return to TV. "It would be almost impossible to top Sex and the City. I have a company for HBO and I produce TV for them. I just don't want to be in front of the camera. But who knows what the future will bring?"

LOWDOWN

Who: Sarah Jessica Parker, actress, perfumier, Sex and the City star.
Born: March 25 1965, Nelsonville, Ohio, USA
Significant others: Husband Matthew Broderick and son James (3).
Key roles: Sex and the City (1998-2004); Footloose (1984); L.A. Story (1991); Mars Attacks! (1996); The First Wives Club (1996); Ed Wood (1994); Honeymoon in Vegas (1992); State and Main (2000).
Trivia: The only one of the leading four women in Sex and the City who didn't appear nude in the show because of a no-nudity clause in her contract.
Next: The Family Stone opens at cinemas on Thursday.

- additional reporting, INDEPENDENT