Sarah Jessica Parker: 'Divorce's' Frances isn't 'Sex's' Carrie
BEVERLY HILLS — Sarah Jessica Parker says her Divorce character, Frances, is clearly separate from her signature role, Carrie Bradshaw, in her first HBO comedy, Sex and the City.
"I don't think that we talked a lot about trying to make her different. This story is different," Parker said Saturday during an HBO panel at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. Divorce, which stars Parker and Thomas Haden Church as a divorcing couple, premieres Oct. 9 (10 ET/PT).
"I was always interested in the story of a marriage," said Parker, who is also an executive producer on the new show. "By that interest alone, it was automatically different. The only time we were cognizant of (making) a distinction was when we started talking about wardrobe. I think Frances was so much her own person from the moment I read the pilot. She's so distinct from Carrie but (also) from anyone I've ever played. She's so weary in a way I had not seen."
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On the topic of fashion, Parker was looking for a '70s cinema aesthetic in both production style and costuming.
"Pretty much everything Frances wears is used," Parker said. "Fashion doesn't dictate. She has to dress. Everything is utilitarian in a way. She's choosing (her clothing) but it's not another character."
As the couple separate, Divorce also will explore what initially drew Frances and Robert (Church) together. There "was a moment we had to know what she saw in him and what he saw in her," Parker said.
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Church said he became more observant of children in divorced families as he worked on the comedy, created by Catastrophe's Sharon Horgan.
"Children represent a bit of a centrifuge. As you're fragmenting, they're there in the middle to keep you together," he said.
The show's title became a magnet for people with stories about their own splits.
"Once people heard we were working on a show called Divorce, the floodgates opened," executive producer Paul Simms said. "It's one of the most traumatic turning points people go through. I think they learn a lot about themselves as they go through it."