EXCLUSIVE: Sarah Jessica Parker lauds India for its strong economy, hopes to explore it for next venture

It was in 1999 when actress Sarah Jessica Parker became a producer for Season 2 of ‘Sex And The City’. For the unversed, the opportunity came to her when 'Sex and The City' creator Darren Star asked her to be a producer, by learning it for the first year and attending the production meetings. Besides confirming that the new season of ‘Sex And The City’ will have “growth with new faces”, she also described the process of taking seven months to film it as “really big, really robust and exciting”.

In an exclusive interaction with Zee Business at the ongoing Red Sea International Film Festival 2024 in Jeddah, Sarah spoke to Divya Pal on a number of aspects, offering a glimpse into her entrepreneurial mindset and describing how India excites her for her next venture. Asked if being a producer or having a business mindset impacts her role as an artiste, she said: “Yes, with budgets, it does. I think I'm horrible. I'm the worst person you want. I'm like: 'Can we afford it?', 'What is this costing us?', 'Should we be putting our money elsewhere?', 'I don't think we need that', 'I think we need that'."

“But I think that's really good for me too because it makes me hypervigilant about every choice we're making, and it makes me better equipped to understand where big money should be and where it shouldn't. And, it also makes me feel an enormous responsibility to that budget, to the studio too, and in essence, our parents who are offering up this money... I wanna be really thoughtful about the ways we're spending it so we can go back and ask for more. So I just think, honestly, as a person, as a professional, I'm just much more conversant in complicated conversations about money and budget... It doesn't mean that I'm always right,” she added.

Sarah is happy to do just about everything to understand every nuance of production and improve at the role consistently.

“I'm also so ready to learn and be better at it. I also can explain to my cast members sometimes. This is why we're doing it this way. This is why this is hard. And I can grumble to them. I told them I shouldn't do this. You know, like and it's just it's such a good feeling to be responsible to and for people. To know that a crew is counting on you to take care of them. That doesn't mean they're not gonna work hard. I'm gonna work hard right alongside them. But it means that they know that you're being thoughtful about their time, their life, their talent, the time they're giving us, and the ways in which we are showing that gratitude all the time. And that they know we're not silly, that we're not being ridiculous and juvenile and about our budgets.”

Asked whether India is a good market for her next venture she has in mind, Sarah: “Oh, I'm hoping I mean, it's hard to deny India's economy... You know, you wanna be a player in that, but you have to be deserving. You know? Everybody wants to be there. You have to be deserving of that audience. So are we? That's the question.”