Sarah Jessica Parker isn’t ashamed to admit there’s more than a bit of Carrie Bradshaw, her fashion-obsessed “Sex and the City” character, in her. She told Matt Lauer on TODAY Thursday that the untamed nails that her co-star Hugh Grant sported on set of their new comedy, “Did You Hear About the Morgans?”, disturbed her so much that she became his manicurist.
“He’s one of the most dashing men in the world, and I was shocked at the state of his fingernails,” Parker said with a laugh. “He has a ragged shovel that he uses — his teeth. And I am exquisitely skilled with a nail clipper.”
Hands, but no feet
Parker and Grant, who previously co-starred in the 1996 thriller “Extreme Measures,” clearly share the camaraderie and comfortable comedic give-and-take of friends. Only the day before Parker’s interview, Grant told Lauer during an appearance on TODAY how much he enjoyed his weekly manicures by Parker during the four-month film shoot.
The only problem? “She balked at my feet,” Grant told Lauer Wednesday.
On Thursday, Parker confirmed to Lauer that she may be an expert manicurist, but she is not a pedicurist. “Every man is responsible for his own feet,” she said, laughing. “But I think the globe deserved a proper, presentable hand.”
Filming “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” with Grant was obviously a busy but joyful time for Parker: During the shoot, the 45-year-old actress learned she was going to welcome twins via surrogate.
It made for an exhilarating but hectic time for Parker, her actor-husband, Matthew Broderick, and the couple’s 7-year-old son, James Wilkie. Not only was the family suddenly expanding by two, but it came at a time when Parker was in the midst of a flurry of acting work, including a sequel to the 2008 hit “Sex and the City” movie, which grossed more than $400 million worldwide.
BlackBerry updatesParker told Lauer she’s well into shooting the “Sex” sequel, due for a May 2010 release. And while husband Broderick has taken on Mr. Mom duties with twin girls Marion Loretta and Tabitha Hodge, now 6 months old, as well as their brother James, Parker relies on her BlackBerry to keep her up to date on all developments while she’s on location.
“We all complain about the horrible shackle that is the BlackBerry, but I see [its] virtue,” Parker told Lauer. “I get tons of pictures, and it is enormously comforting, because it is very hard to be separated from all my children. I literally get pictures of them all day long. It changes the course of my day, every day.”
Parker says she is also over the moon about how well son James has taken to being a big brother, even though she and Broderick had to ease him into the role because he wasn’t actually going to see a pregnant mama leading up to the twins’ arrival.
“It was a big concern, and we really tried to be thoughtful about how to make this transition,” Parker recalled. “Obviously, it wasn’t what normally happens in a home where a child watches [a pregnancy] and you can really talk about it. We didn’t want to burden him with a secret.”
Visibly choking up with emotion, Parker added, “He’s ready to be a big brother; he’s at that age where they want to be reliable little people, and it’s just a blessing all around. I feel extremely lucky in every way.”