QUE SARAH, SARAH

FORGET TOM AND NICOLE. THE PEOPLE’S POWER COUPLE IS SARAH JESSICA PARKER AND MATTHEW BRODERICK. IN THEIR FIRST INTERVIEW TOGETHER, THEY TALK ABOUT BEING DUELING SEX SYMBOLS, THEIR FAMOUS EXES AND WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF SEX AND THE CITY'S CARRIE BRADSHAW MET FERRIS BUELLER.

It’s the day after the Emmy awards and Sarah Jessica Parker has just lost the Outsanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series prize for her turn as Carrie Bradshaw in the wicked HBO series Sex and the City: Furthermore, she lost it to Helen Hunt--her husband’s ex-girlfriend. Despite that rude blow (as well as one dealt a few weeks earlier when Parker’s Dudley Do-Right tanked), her husband of two years, Matthew Broderick, thirty-seven, is, nevertheless, feigning a Norman Maine fit of pique: Describing his role in You Can Count on Me, an indie film he made last summer while starring on Broadway in Night Must Fall, he witheringly notes that he plays “not the lead, but, as they once told Norman Maine in A Star Is Born, ‘It’s even BETTER than the lead—it’s a part that really leaves an IMPRESSION.’”

The son of the late James Broderick and one of the best actors of his generation, Broderick’s oh-woe-is-me act is, of course, just that: His career—which took off at age nineteen in 1981 with Torch Song Trilogy (he won a Tony for the next year’s Brighton Beach Memoirs) then skyrocketed with his signature role in 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—is still in tip-top shape. Not only has he scored a recent commercial smash, last summer’s Inspector Gadget, but earlier this year, in Election, he landed some of the best reviews he’s ever received.

Still, with Sex and the City, it’s undeniably Sarah’s moment. Her show is a true phenomenon that has inspired fashion trends (her character’s iconic trademark, a gold name-tag necklace, gave “cool” status to that former accessory aberration) and fueled water-cooler debates (usually over such bon mots as “Women are for friends, men are for fucking”). Why the fuss? Simple. Sex’s incisive, deliriously uncensored dialogue and plotlines have, as never before on television, allowed four female buddies to cuss, screw around, and verbally bash guys as merrily and matter-of-factly as people in the real world often DO.

And, hallelujah, the series’ success has finally pushed Parker, long an inspired natural comedienne, into the big girls’ club. The Cincinnati native has worked since she was eight years old in a career that’s seen her go from TV brat in the 1982 sitcom Square Pegs to critics’ darling in 1995’s off-Broadway hit, Sylvia, to movie-star-in-training in ‘90s vehicles such as L.A. Story and The First Wives Club. But with Carrie, the “sexual anthropologist” heroine she plays in Sex and the City, Parker has finally found a role that stamps her in the public imagination as definitely as her husband’s “Ferris” did him.

Manhattanites to the core, the couple live in SoHo just blocks from where Broderick grew up. The two stars, never apart for more than two weeks, tops, both work regularly in theatre, movies, and television, hang with actor and artist friends, and each boast a trail of famous exes—Broderick’s include the aforementioned Hunt, as well as Jennifer Grey; Parker’s, a seven-year romance with Robert Downey, Jr., and a fling with JFK, Jr. Yet somehow the duo remain solidly down-to-earth, seeming to have mastered the delicate balance between stardom and real life.

For Parker that trait stems, she says, from having grown up in a socially conscious working-class family of ten. “It’s nature and nurture and all that stuff,” she reckons. Subsequently, the exotic beauty has been a 1995 ACLU Award winner, a member of the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee, as well as the UNICEF Special Representative for the Performing Arts. For his part, the equally populist Mr. Broderick keeps himself real by remaining a committed subway and bike rider with a passion for pinball and the Yankees.

Semi-regular Joes, don’t expect them to work their coupledom a la Beatty and Bening, or even Cronyn and Tandy. Though they teamed up once professionally for the 1995 Broadway musical revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (which earned Broderick a second Tony), this afternoon they claim to be “nervous” and “embarrassed” at even doing an interview together.

Not that it shows. The two are perched thisclosetogether in the sunny courtyard of L.A.’s Chateau Marmont. Still clearly devoted after eight years together, the eternally youthful couple have ditched the evening duds of last night and are dressed to rumple in jeans and overalls. The golden-brown Parker gazes adoringly at Broderick, steadily rubbing a blindingly white arm of his (“Harvey Fierstein once described my color as ‘Brooklyn Green’”, he laughs) as he reciprocates by sweetly squeezing her knee. Quick, funny and full of stories, they banter away on topics from Marlon Brando, whom Broderick worked with in 1990’s The Freshman (“He actually told me he didn’t think On the Waterfront was any good,” laughs Matthew. “I said he should really give that one another chance.”), to Ross Perot (“He’s a loon,” sums up Sarah), to the issue of Matthew’s chunkiness “problem” (“It’s his most womanly quality—he’s got anorexic eyes,” teases Mrs. B). Live and in-person, it turns out that the Brodericks are neither Cronyn and Tandy, nor Cruise and Kidman. What they are, of all things, is the new Burns and Allen. Or, as I actually said….

I HAD AN EPIPHANY LAST NIGHT DURING THE EMMYS. I CONCLUDED THAT THE TWO OF YOU ARE “THE PEOPLE’S TOM AND NICOLE.” THEY DO KUBRICK FILMS, YOU DO HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS.
MATTHEW BRODERICK: Though not too many people know that we actually turned DOWN the Kubrick film. [Beat] Kidding. [To Sarah] But did you know a guy called this morning and said, “You were on TV a lot last night. You were the ‘cute’ power couple.”
SARAH JESSICA PARKER: [Aghast] Was he serious?!
MB: He meant it in the worst possible way.

I HAVE TO SAY, I DON’T THINK OF YOU AS A POWER COUPLE.
SJP: Yeah, ‘cause we’re not, that’s for damn sure!

YOU JUST SEEM SO ACCESSIBLE. YOU KNOW, YOU’RE NOT INTIMIDATINGLY BEAUTIFUL AND--
MB: Hey, what do you mean by that?
SJP: No, that’s for damn sure, too! [To Matthew] We should work harder at being more closed off, honey, because then people might think we WERE intimidatngly beautiful. Like, if we traveled with more security [looks around] or for instance, ANY, [laughs] people might think we were more important. Unfortunately, we’re way too “on the street.”

SO ‘ON THE STREET,’ SARAH, THAT YOUR NAKED BODY WAS PLASTERED ALL OVER NEW YORK BUSES TO PROMISE SEX AND THE CITY: WERE YOU COOL WITH THAT, MR. BRODERICK?
MB: Hmmm….I can’t say I loved it, but if I thought they were just selling the show on what a great body Sarah has—which she does—it would have made me uncomfortable, but—
SJP: —but I’ve not had a career of being objectified like that so I think, for this show, it’s okay. I mean I obviously wouldn’t do pictures like that for Dudley Do-Right.

OKAY, BUT TELL US: ARE YOU ENJOYING THIS NEW SEX-SYMBOLDOM?
SJP: I don’t really think I am a sex symbol. But I do think it’s funny that you play a part like this half a lifetime later. I think it’s, well, hopeful somehow. And I love being in a show that people are so responsive to.

WHY DO YOU THINK IT TOOK SEX, IN THIS, ITS SECOND SEASON, TO REALLY CATCH ON VERSUS, SAY, HBO’s THE SOPRANOS WHICH TOOK OFF RUNNING?
SJP: Because our show is about the intimate relationships of men and women and how women choose to share those relations with their closest female friends. So women loved it from the start, but it took men time. Like last year men would come up secretly and say [out of the corner of her mouth] “Love your show,” and keep walking. This year they’re open about it.

SO, MATTHEW, IS THAT PUBLIC RESPONSE REALLY MAKING YOU FEEL LIKE NORMAN MAINE?
MB: Haven’t you seen Inspector Gadget? [beat] Kidding.

YOU POOR, WASHED-UP OLD THING, WHY DON’T YOU MAKE A MOVIE WITH SARAH?
SJP: I don’t think we WANT to act together. I mean, if you meet each other working together, like I think Tom and Nicole did, you could probably do it for the rest of your life. But we met as a man and a woman—I mean, I met Matthew when I was going to the movies one night with my brother, Pippin. So for us to pretend we’re somebody else with each other—
MB: —is a little embarrassing. You see, the nice thing about How to Succeed was that it was sarcastic. But to do a real serious romance would be hard, because you’d feel like people are—
SJP: —watching “Matthew and Sarah.” See, they wanted Matthew to do something on Sex this year, but when it came down to it—
MB: Hey, I LIKED that part. That was a time thing. Really.
SJP: Yeah, but we still would have to have been in the bed together. In front of everybody. (Matthew groans)
MB: It was a JOKE. A sarcastic joke.

LET’S MOVE ON, KIDS. I UNDERSTAND YOU’RE BOTH BIG-TIME YANKEE FANS. WHAT’S THE DEAL?
MB: For me, it’s something to do with fathers. Because mine took me to games and taught me about it and I loved playing it, too. And the more you know about baseball the better it is—it’s like a play that you don’t know the end of.

WELL, IF YOU EVER HAVE CHILDREN YOU’LL NOT ONLY BE ABLE TO TEACH THEM THE JOYS OF THE GAME, YOU CAN ALSO ENTERTAIN THEM WITH YOUR EVER-GROWING CHILDREN’S VIDEO LIBRARY. TOGETHER YOU’VE GOT THE LION KING [AS SIMBA’S VOICE], INSPECTOR GADGET, GODZILLA, DUDLEY DO-RIGHT—
SJP: (dryly) And don’t forget Shalome Sesame Street, I was in that, too. But that’s IF we have kids, which, hopefully one day we’ll do. So back to baseball. I love it. I was already into it, but Matthew got me more so than ever. And I became really devoted to the Yankees. (suggestive beat) And doing everything I could to help the team. (beat) Because Matthew would WANT me to help the team. (Matthew chuckles) Just like when we went to the White House and he said….well, maybe I shouldn’t tell this story.
MB: We don’t get invited anymore, but, well, okay….I said, “If anything happens and he has any interest in you, it’s okay, honey, ‘cause he’s the president—
SJP: —and you have a moral obligation to the country.” (to me) I mean, would YOU turn him down?

I TAKE THE FIFTH. THOUGH I THINK IT’S TIME TO DELVE MORE DEEPLY INTO THIS LITTLE MARRIAGE—A MARRIAGE THAT YOU VIRTUALLY LOBBIED FOR ON YOUR APPEARANCES ON DAVID LETTERMAN. YOU FINALLY GOT MATTHEW, BUT STILL, LETTERMAN AND YOU HAVE A VERY PUBLIC FLIRTATION. SO WHAT’S MATTHEW GOT THAT DAVE DOESN’T?
SJP: Me. (laughs) No, look, just so you know, I’ve never, ever spoken to David Letterman outside what you’ve seen on television. But there’s no question I have absolute affection for him. He’s bright and he challenges me and scares me and I want to please him. And I love that he lets us see his self-loathing and fear and loneliness. There’s something charmingly flawed about his persona.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR FLAWS? WHO’S THE OSCAR AND WHO’S THE FELIX?
SJP: I’m the slob. Although I am NOT the generator of incredible, incredible amounts of boxes that—in my defense, every night I come home and open boxes and boxes of mail and throw it all away.
MB: Oh, for a video camera placed strategically in our home right now.
SJP: Matthewwww.
MB: Oh, my, now this is like The Newlywed Game. Don’t hit me with your card please.

QUICK—WHAT’S THE BEST THING ABOUT BEING MARRIED?
SJP: Knowing you don’t have to look anymore. Dating is really hard and I can only sympathize with my friends, because I can’t ever promise that those who are single will ever find what I have. Sometimes you just don’t.

TRUE. BUT DO YOU EVER MISS WHAT SEX AND THE CITY CALLS “THE DAYS OF EMOTIONAL UNAVAILABILITY AND HOT ONE-NIGHT STANDS”?
SJP: No, because my single life wasn’t like Carrie’s at all. I’ve really only had two long relationships and Matthew is one of ‘em.
MB: I never liked clubs either. Though when I first started working, man, I was amazed at how girls found me so much more attractive—you get so much more “handsome” when you’re worth money.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR EXES? LIKE, IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A ROOM WITH ROBERT DOWNEY, JR., JENNIFER GREY, AND HELEN HUNT IS IT ALL KISSY-KISSY OR IS IT “LET’S GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!”?
BOTH: (Horrified) Oh, my God!
MB: I’d be like Jackie Gleason when his boss comes in and sees that he’s been using his office (a la Gleason) Homina-homina-homina!
SJP: That sounds so terrifying I don’t think we’d leave OR kiss-kiss. We’re middle-liners. We’re Clinton.

SO, CLINTONITES, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF REPUBLICANS?
MB: They stink.
SJP: When Clinton got in trouble all they kept saying was, “But what do I tell my kids?!” And the whole time I was saying, “Oh, so you’re telling me that for the past six years you’ve been telling your children every morning, ‘Clinton is your moral leader. Have a good day?!’” Please. It’s a bunch of marlarkey.

I LOVE THAT THE WOMAN WHO STARS IN THE MOST SEXUALLY EXPLICITY SHOW ON TV ACTUALLY SAYS ‘MALARKEY’. SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT BASTION OF REPUBLICANISM, MAYOR RUDY GIULIANI? SEX IS FOREVER BASHING HIM.
SJP: As much as we can.
MB: Part of what’s nice about New York is that there’s no plan. It’s kind of this crazy mess—
SJP: But he won’t allow for that crazy mess. Like making pedestrians cross at certain places. Please. Oops, I shouldn’t say too much because I don’t want him to stop letting my show shoot on the streets there. Though I do have to say I did love that line on Sex where I’m at an S&M restaurant, look at my food, and say, “That’s what happens when Guiliani takes the sex out of Times Square—It ends up in your cuisine.”

BRILLIANT. SO, TELL ME: WHAT WOULD CARRIE MAKE OF FERRIS BEULLER?
SJP: Oh wow—his world is all about scoring and achieving and superficial, outward success so she’d love him. She probably would have been his prom date. (laughs) She’d probably STILL be his prom date.
MB: (Beams) And he’d go crazy for her.