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| Rewind 1973 |
| Life goes on |
| Interview Alex May |
| KIM CATTRALL Long before she was femme fatale Samantha Jones in Sex And The City, this actor was discovering the pitfalls and heartbreak of being a young, dark-haired, inexperienced geek in the city. Oh, I remember this photo so clearly. This was such a seminal time in my life. I look back at that little girl in the picture [Cattrall is third from right] and I just want to put my arms around her and say, "You are going to survive this." I was 17 when I got my first big break but it completely destroyed me. The director [Otto Preminger, director of 1975 movie Rosebud, centre], who picked me out of hundreds of thousands of girls, told me I was fat and had to lose 10 pounds [4.5 kilograms]. To be told that just before you start your big adventure is devastating. I was never fat. It messed with my head. I had never been interested in things like clothes and make-up and the way I looked but acting forces you to be interested. A lot of the situations I found myself in at that age were hard for me. I felt like a geek because of my ambition. In my home town [Vancouver Island, Canada], I didn't belong. No one else wanted to be an actor; they wanted to get married and have kids or be a dental hygienist. I wanted to see the world and be in a different place experiencing something other than what was commonplace. Leaving home so young was a risk. I didn't have a mentor to take me by the hand and say, "It's going to be OK." I had to take a lot of roles just to eat or pay my rent. Porky's [she played a sex-starved gym coach in the 1982 movie] was one of them. I was not fortunate enough to have Daddy or Mummy sending me money. Did I want to go back to waitressing or did I want to do three days on a film? I did the film. I would do it over again because actors are like any other people and they have to eat. I dated Pierre Trudeau [Canadian Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979]. I was in my early 20s and he was a lot older. We met at the opening of one of my films in Toronto and saw each other for quite some time. I was based in the States but we'd meet up when we could. He was a charismatic man, a true statesman. I loved playing Samantha [in Sex And The City] - she's such a courageous, funny and wonderful character. I turned down the role three times before taking it. At the time I thought Samantha was a bit two-dimensional. I had just turned 40 and I didn't know if I could be that femme fatale. People think they saw Kim Cattrall naked but I was just the vessel to show Samantha. I was the body that showed the audience this character who was so free and open to physical experiences and pleasure. I am not at all like that. Fast forward A lot of young girls like Sex And The City but I see them with their thongs [G-strings] hanging out and clack-clacking down the streets with their handbags. Well, there is more to growing up than imitating a TV show. I want women to know how to treat themselves and how to be good to themselves. I won't be having any children, so I wrote a book called Being A Girl, which is full of advice for teenage girls. I've just finished a movie I made in Ireland called A Tiger's Tail with John Boorman, which is due out next year. There have been reports of me doing Desperate Housewives, but no, that's not happening. |