Cynthia Nixon Breaks Down Her "SATC" Era, Run for Governor & "And Just Like That" Return

I'm really nothing like Miranda.

She's single, she's searching,

she's a workaholic.

You know, she's not a mother.

She's sort of commitment-phobic

like, I was in a long-term relationship

and I had a child already.

[beep]

Hi, this is Cynthia Nixon.

Today I'm looking back at some moments

that have shaped my career and my identity.

This is Becoming Cynthia Nixon.

[bright music]

So this is me, Sarah Jessica Parker and Maia Danziger.

We're all playing sisters in a a TV movie

that was called My Body, my Child.

We did in 1982.

I wouldn't know that offhand

but I see it on the screen.

We shot in Nashville for three weeks

and Sarah Jessica and I were there.

We knew each other a bit from auditions

and from other stuff that we had done together

and we were both there with our mothers.

So we hung out a lot.

And sometimes Sarah and I talk

about there was a Houston's there

and neither family had a lot of money

so we had to go out to eat because we were in a hotel room.

So it seemed very glamorous.

We would go to this Houston's

and we would eat these fried zucchini sticks,

which she and I still remember to this day.

Both of our mothers were the primary parent in our life

and very level-headed people and very education focused.

There are a lot

of child actors who don't make the transition

to being adult actors

or lots of worse stuff than that happens

to them along the way.

But I think both of our mothers were very level-headed

and very disciplined.

And I think it was an enormous difference

that means that Sarah Jessica and I are still working today

and have happy full lives.

Here we go. Let's see.

[bright music]

How does it happen that four such smart women have nothing

to talk about, but boyfriends?

It's like seventh grade with bank accounts.

What about us?

What we think, we feel, we know.

Christ.

Does it always have to be about them?

Miranda is a character who's just aged well.

She was cynical and she was very strident and argumentative

and I think she's definitely softened

and deepened over the years.

We've seen a lot more parts of her, but I also think

that a lot of the stuff that she was complaining about

that you know, the culture has moved

and is standing pretty much now where Miranda was standing,

however, you know, 25 years ago.

Sid and I aren't really a couple.

In fact, we're not even really lesbians.

Well, Sid is, I'm not.

Pat was just gonna have me in a regular Miranda outfit,

but I was like, No, Miranda's gonna go for it.

Miranda's gonna, you know, try and look the part

so she's gonna be all but in drag.

I was the one who was very assertive

about wanting to wear a suit and a tie and all this stuff.

So I think maybe if Miranda had been dressed as herself,

Sid might have been dressed more butch

but I think then Pat saw that as a a chance

to do a fun flip.

I think that when you look at Sex and the City now,

I think many of the queer characters,

particularly more minor characters,

are more stereotypical than I think we wish that they were.

But I guess my overwhelming sense

about the show at the time was I wasn't focused on that.

What I was focused

on was what an incredibly white show it was.

So that to me seemed front and center.

As queer people, forever,

because we didn't see representations of ourselves,

we've been forced to translate, you know,

straight characters that represent some part of us.

And I think the four women in Sex and the City,

well they're trying to chart their own course.

They have lots of sex partners,

they're not necessarily marriage minded,

they're not, you know, child minded

which I think was a great, you know, feminist departure.

But I think queer people

across the board also saw themselves in the show

because these were women who weren't looking

to live heteronormative, you know, cookie cutter lives.

They were on an adventure to discover themselves.

[bright music]

This was an enormous deal in my life.

I had been nominated for a Tony once before

but the idea that I was gonna win one was just amazing.

I don't know.

I see now that I did not thank Christine

in my acceptance speech at all.

I can be a very literal person and I was like,

Gonna thank the professional people in my life.

But other awards that I have won later,

I now understand it's really important

to thank your partner.

Lisa Kron, who's an amazing writer

and actor who was nominated opposite me in this category.

We hung out at the party later and she said,

Of course I knew you were gonna win

and I would've liked to win.

But getting to see you kiss your butch girlfriend

on national TV, like she said,

That was just--

How could I feel anything but thrilled about this?

So Sex and the City had ended,

it was 2004 and it was the final Emmy awards

that we were going to, and I won the Emmy.

I was so startled and thrilled

and was not expecting it at all.

And right after that there was a bunch of press inquiry

about asking whether I was dating a woman.

When Christine and I had had first started dating,

there was like a little inquiry

and then we just hired a publicist

and said like, no, nothing.

'Cause the relationship was so new,

it seemed like it would be strange to sort of embrace it

and you know, do red carpets together and stuff like that.

But by the time this happened,

we were really kind of in a committed relationship.

So we had fired that publicist [chuckles]

and said like, That is not gonna work.

My manager, who I thank in the Tony speech,

when I won my Tony, Emily Gerson,

she found me a publicist who was herself a lesbian who was

in Los Angeles, Kelly Bush.

And there was such an enormous amount of press inquiry.

We didn't know what to do.

So we called Kelly, who I'd never met, on the phone

and we laid out the whole situation for her.

She listened and then she said,

Well, why don't we confirm?

And it was like, you know,

somebody told me that there actually like was a Santa Claus

or you could fly if you wanted to.

We confirmed and then it was like all hell broke loose.

Kelly and everybody working with Kelly,

really just steered us through that storm

and said like, We're gonna confirm it

and we're not gonna talk about it right now.

Maybe it would've had an effect on my career if I was 22.

You know, maybe I wouldn't have gotten cast

in Sex and the City. Who knows?

It's impossible to know.

But for people like Anne Heche,

I think it certainly had an enormous negative impact

on her career.

I think she would've been a big movie star.

[bright music]

I like how messy my hair is.

I love the Steve and Miranda relationship.

First of all, the original show was

about people with so much disposable income

and Steve was like our one working class guy.

Early on, Steve and Miranda were walking

down the street together.

It was like the first walk and talk they had.

What's happening? Maybe she's telling him she's pregnant.

I can't remember.

They had me in a pair of heels

and it was this moment where it was like,

Oh, well in a pair of heels,

I'm taller than David Eigenberg.

Do we need to change the shoes?

That was a discussion that we had

and we were all like, Why?

You know, why can't she be taller than him?

It's cute.

Miranda's very like, the way is bared.

Like she's got centuries at the gates.

And it took somebody as wildly and as gentle, I think,

and as persistent as Steve

to sort of get around all her defense mechanisms

and be the person who could bring out the parts

of her that were definitely asleep,

and that she thought might be dead.

You know, like the maternal part of her,

the domestic part of her,

the part of her that actually might want

to share her life with someone

and not just have a series of one night stands.

Miranda's the alpha in that relationship

and nobody ever said different.

[bright music]

We are to pray for the repose of our late Pastor's soul.

Doesn't that rather depend on where it's gone?

[chuckles]

We shall become fast friends.

I'm playing Emily Dickinson and I'm there

with my sister who's played by Jennifer Ehle.

Emily is kind of dazzled by not only the woman's wit

and seeming radicalism,

but by her, I don't know,

her [speaking in foreign language] and her spirit

and her confidence, I guess.

Terrence Davies, who wrote and directed this film,

is a queer British filmmaker,

and Emily is not queer in this version, particularly.

To label her as bisexual would be a very anachronistic term.

But my belief is that she is bisexual

and that had great romantic attachments to men and to women.

Whether those were consummated or not.

Jodhi May who plays her sister-in-law,

who is the person, if she had a lesbian relationship,

it seems very clear that that was the most important one.

That is not the case in our film.

But the two women have a late night conversation.

Her sister-in-law speaks about not desiring her husband

and it being very difficult for her

and the two women share this kind

of unspoken understanding about it.

To me at least, that is the one nod to Emily being queer.

I don't think it necessarily makes her gay

but I think she has a girl crush

on this character in the scene.

Yeah, I think she definitely does.

[bright music]

And I see the future of the Democratic Party

in this room tonight. [crowd cheers]

The future of the Democratic Party is young.

It is diverse. Yes.

It is progressive.

I completely stand by these words.

This is the future of the Democratic Party.

Weirdly, in the first week, if not the first day,

I think the first day of our campaign,

Christine Quinn, who is a lesbian,

who was a former chair of the city council,

labeled me an unqualified lesbian,

which was astonishing. [chuckles]

And her point was that she had run for mayor

and not been elected and she was qualified,

that an unqualified lesbian did not have a chance

to be elected governor of New York state.

So this made for endless fun campaign fodder

and buttons and bags.

And in my defense, you know, the paperwork

for becoming a qualified lesbian is, you know, very lengthy.

I'm happy to be called a lesbian.

I'm happy to be called bisexual.

I myself prefer queer,

just because I feel like,

I don't know, bisexual seems very like pedantic

and academic or something.

I just wanna, you know, be like,

I'm with them. I'm over here.

You know?

There are times when I feel gayer or less gay.

Calling me a lesbian when I'm running

for governor of New York State,

That's fine, that's cool.

[bright music]

You just let it slide into your mouth.

It's like making love to the ocean.

You know, I've known Sarah for years

from her time in New York.

It's always intimidating to walk

onto a set that isn't your set

and I had been away for quite a while.

I had never done a part like this.

I was intimidated and Sarah was so lovely to me

but also she wasn't the Sarah that I knew

which surprised me.

You know, Sarah in regular life is just hilarious.

She just has you in stitches 24 hours a day.

You know, I've been acting since I was 12

and I never do anything long term that isn't in New York.

This was the one exception.

I was like, First of all, how can I let this pass?

Such a juicy part, playing opposite Sarah,

for Ryan Murphy, all these amazing actresses,

a queer love story, a period queer love story.

And also I feel like Ryan Murphy,

not only did he offer me all those wonderful things

but he offered me a lifeline of sorts.

You take a year out of your life

and run for governor and do these things, you know,

you don't know kind of what acting career

there's gonna be waiting for you when you get back.

But Ryan Murphy offered me a job

that would've been a wonderful job

to be offered at any time,

but to offer it to me in that moment,

I will never forget that he did that.

[bright music]

[gentle music] [people chattering]

Michael Patrick King was very opposed

to my wearing this outfit.

He said the whole thing about Miranda is

that Miranda was like stuck and miserable

and her life was just going nowhere.

And he said, What does she need to be liberated

from if she's like wearing this hot mama outfit?

Luckily they didn't really have any other choices

that he could make a case for as being acceptable.

So I wore it.

He said, You were totally right about that.

If she wasn't looking so great,

she probably wouldn't have the confidence to do it.

When we were talking about doing this new series,

all of us had a lot of conversations.

A lot of the conversations were

about the lack of diversity on the original show,

whether you're talking race or ethnicity or gender or class.

Kind of in early conversations,

Michael Patrick King said to me,

Well, do you want Miranda to be queer?

And I was like, I mean, I could do whatever,

but why not, right?

If we're trying to move forward,

like here's a really obvious way

that we could and should move forward.

And if we don't, like, aren't people gonna wonder why?

You can bring in queer characters

but you got like a homegrown queer character.

Why not use the native plant?

So when the original series was on,

the press would always ask us

how we're like our characters.

And I would always say, I'm really nothing like Miranda.

She's single, she's searching, she's a workaholic.

You know, she's not a mother.

She's sort of commitment-phobic.

Like, I was in a long-term relationship

and I had a child already.

But then when we were finally in our last season,

a reporter asked me this question

and said which way--

And I said, I'm just like Miranda in every way.

And I do feel like by giving Miranda a partner,

by giving her a child, by giving her a home

that was really a home, not just a place to live, like.

And by giving her, by allowing her insecurity

or fragility to be more available,

she became so much closer to me.

But then also maybe in my growing up,

'cause you know, we age, things change.

But also in my proximity to her,

I think I became more--

Confident, you know, the latent aggression

in me was allowed to flower.

I don't feel closer to her now

that her queerness is part of her storyline.

Well, I don't wanna spoil, do a spoiler alert

but I'm a person in a long-term relationship

and Miranda's not.

Do you like it? Tell me not to stop.

I like it. [panting]

Oh, please Che. [lips smacking]

All the guys on Sex and the City, Mr. Big included,

they're always like the second fiddle to the woman.

And for the first time you had two major characters

that were equally important,

that were having sex with each other.

So I think that felt really different to me.

The sex scenes don't feel that much.

I mean, this one was standing up.

I've directed two episodes this year.

It's very intimidating to move

from being an actor to being a director

but if there was ever gonna be a warm bath way of doing it,

it would be on a show in which you were already acting

and which you had, you know,

a character that you've been doing for 25 years,

with people who've been your, you know, compadres

for that amount of time

and all that love and all that support.

Thank you for revisiting these milestones with me.

This has been Becoming with Cynthia Nixon.

[gentle music]