Playing Miranda changed Cynthia Nixon’s life. Now the show-stopping, shoe-shopping star reveals how she’s reinventing herself after 40.
On Sex and the City
An emporium of comfort shoes -- waxy, Crayola-colored Crocs down the center, orthopedic inserts behind the register, cork-soled granny sandals to the left -- is about as far as you can get, physically and ideologically, from the stilettos fetishized on Sex and the City. Yet here is Cynthia Nixon, Sex and the City's Miranda Hobbes, perusing the sale rack at a shop in her neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper West Side. As she moves toward a pair of sleek, understated black ankle boots by Arche (the brand, she says, of a put-together woman), a salesman recognizes her -- but only as a frequent customer. She brings the boots to the register, where another older salesman feels compelled to approach her. "Anyone ever tell you you look like Reba?" he asks.
"McEntire? No, I've never heard that one," Nixon answers gamely. The young cashier, meanwhile, shakes her head apologetically, clearly a-tingle with embarrassment at having to work with these dunderheads. "When is the movie coming out?" she asks while handing back Nixon's gold card. "Because I can't wait."
Neither, it's safe to say, can most of the women who tuned in to Sex and the City on HBO for six years on Sunday nights, nor those who now make a bedtime ritual of watching the reruns on TBS, nor those who've snapped up the DVDs and turned the theme song's opening strains into the ring tone of their lives.
It was hard not to fall in love with the show. The fashion was pure eye candy, the apartments (or in Carrie's case, just her walk-through closet) inspired acute real estate envy, and thrilling sex seemed always to be on offer. But underneath the fantasy were four endearingly flawed friends who, while they were navigating life changes and nursing broken hearts, offered us glimpses of ourselves. And Nixon's indelible portrayal of Miranda -- a pragmatic, hyperarticulate lawyer who worried about choking to death in her apartment with only her increasingly hungry cat for company and was the first of her friends to have a baby (with her bartender lover) -- made her the easiest of all to relate to. Even Miranda's wardrobe was more down-to-earth, so much so that Nixon, 42, still wears a good bit of it. "I definitely started looking better in real life because of the show's clothes," she admits over a late bistro breakfast of steel-cut oatmeal and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. "Some of the cutting-edge stuff was borrowed or samples, but mine was such a mix that I got to keep it all. It's not as if anyone wanted it back."
Not everyone embraced the series right away. "Some people thought it was shocking and vulgar to have these women sitting around talking about sex and men, and having opinions about things they want," Nixon says. But the show went on to earn 55 Emmy nominations and seven wins, including one for Nixon, and on May 30, the saga will continue with the release of the long-awaited film.
Although the series relied on its stars' winning chemistry, none of the actresses (Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, and Kristin Davis) auditioned with one another before being cast. "It's a strange miracle that we all came together over time," says Davis, who plays Charlotte York and is now one of Nixon's closest friends. "It was kismet." And judging from the TV shows that tried this season to capture some of Sex and the City's appeal -- Cashmere Mafia, Lipstick Jungle and the misbegotten Big Shots, which featured men talking like women talking like men -- it's a formula not easily duplicated.
As filming on the movie got under way last September, more than nine years after the series premiere, the stars found themselves surrounded by a scrum of paparazzi and fans looking for clues to the closely guarded plot (was that a wedding dress?!). "Our assistant director had to talk to the crowd and say, 'We're rolling now; flash photography or making noise can ruin the shot,'" Nixon says. "But basically, people were fans, so they respected that. The very first day, there was a shot of the four of us walking on the streets in heels, and it was wonderful and very freaky. There was a sense that we were one four-headed, eight-legged organism. There were hundreds of people watching, and it was like stepping back in time, yet we were all years older. It was great to be together doing a thing we love to do."
Parker, who plays Carrie Bradshaw and has known Nixon since the late 1970s, when they worked on a Little House on the Prairie album ("It was a record, so that gives you an idea of how long ago it was," Parker says, laughing), reveals that "the movie has a lot to do with my and Cynthia's characters. We have a big, emotional story line that's integral to the plot. And the more time I spend with Cynthia, the better. She's so good, and you want to be as good."
Despite a career that stretches back 30 years and includes both screen and stage triumphs, Nixon knows she owes a lot to Miranda: "I get opportunities," she says, "because of the show and admiration for the work, but also because it's like, 'Oh, she's sexy. She was on that sexy show.' I was 31 when I did the pilot, and it's a very happy occasion for an actress getting older that people decide you're sexy for the first time. Sex and the City put me in a different league."
Her Life Off-Screen
Nixon has lived in New York all her life, and the Upper West Side is like a little hometown for her. In one block alone, she points out her mom's apartment, her regular place for facials, and the shop where she buys cupcakes for her kids. Here the naturally blond actress is much more likely to be recognized as the mother of 11-year-old Samantha and 5-year-old Charlie or as the impassioned spokesperson for the Alliance for Quality Education, which supports public schools across the state. "I always knew I didn't want to live anywhere else," she says. "A lot of my friends fled, and I just sat and waited. I knew they'd be back."
Nixon is the only child of an actress turned PR writer and a radio journalist who separated when she was 6: "My parents had professional jobs but certainly never a lot of money. They were a very particular kind of New Yorker that, as prices get more and more expensive here, is getting harder to find." Hunter College High School, the magnet public school she attended, "was very high-pressure and un-fashion conscious. It was the high school of nerds" -- some of whom Nixon still counts as good friends.
One day when she was 11, she and her mother ran into a director friend of her mom's. "He was trying to get a movie made of Norma Klein's book Mom, the Wolfman and Me. He wanted me to audition, and that was the beginning." Within a year, she'd done an ABC After School Special and was also cast as Sunshine, the hippie chick in Little Darlings.
If, almost 20 years later, Nixon's friends weren't terribly impressed when she got the part of Miranda (some show on cable? -- eh), playing Sunshine was a different story. "That was a really big deal," she says, still sounding incredulous that she landed the role. She got her first real taste of Hollywood on the Georgia set. "Armand Assante was going out with Dyan Cannon, and she was there. Ryan O'Neal was going out with Diana Ross, and they were down there. And Kristy McNichol's friend was Ina Liberace, as in Liberace's niece. It was unbelievable."
At Barnard College, she began a relationship with Danny Mozes, whom she'd known since junior high ("I always thought he was cute, but he was in a different crowd, so it wasn't until college that we became friends"). The couple, who never married, had Samantha and Charlie and were together 15 years. When they separated amicably in 2003, "we did this thing called Bird's Nest," Nixon says. "You make a nest where the parents fly in and out." The children stayed in the family apartment, and the parents, who had their own separate spaces, took turns visiting. "You have to stay focused on what's best for the kids: If you have a kid who's in denial about your breaking up, it can continue the denial. But it worked for our kids."
That two-year transition also helped Nixon ease out of her bond with Mozes, a college professor: "I have to say that when the time finally came to do the whose-copy-is-this with our books, I thought, wow, if I'd had to do this two years ago...." She shakes her head at the memory. "It was still such a yank, emotionally."
By that time, she had also weathered a celebrity rite of passage: headlines over a new romance. Nixon met Christine Marinoni, then New York City director of the Alliance for Quality Education, when she got involved with the group because of budget cuts at her daughter's school. She marched on city hall; she toured the state in a school bus to raise awareness; and she quietly began dating Marinoni. When their relationship was splashed across the pages of two New York tabloids in September 2004, Nixon simply commented, "My private life is private. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. So what I will say is that I am very happy," and the story pretty much evaporated -- give or take a few paparazzi incidents.
When Nixon talks about Marinoni these days, it is simply as a matter of course, the way anyone talks about the person who shares his or her life. Marinoni left her job last fall to help manage the household while Nixon spent long hours filming. "Christine had been toying with taking a leave of absence, and when the movie started, it made her jump off the cliff. We had been living together for a while at that point, and it was a time for her to figure out what she wants to do next. She said that she always thought a big part of my personality was being a housewife, doing all the things and running here and there," she says, spreading her arms and wriggling her fingers as if life's myriad details are like those mousetraps loaded with Ping-Pong balls that set off a chain reaction. "And now, of course, she's totally taken on that personality trait."
What's Next
Perhaps the best description of how Nixon ended up with Marinoni is this: "Don't ask me just how it happened, I wish I knew. I can't believe that it's happened, and still it's true" -- lyrics of a song from Annie Get Your Gun, which Nixon sang at Marinoni's 40th birthday party and renamed "I Got Lost in Her Arms."
Not long before she celebrated her own 40th, in 2006, the actress resolved to learn to sing. "Turning 40 was a very real thing for me," she says. "I felt it in a way that I didn't when I turned 30 or 35. Forty was a peak: I could look forward and I could look back. I had to start thinking, the decisions I make count, and what are the things I want to do?" Singing was something "I was definitely afraid of. It's incredibly revealing and intense. Part of it was that my mother is a wonderful singer, and she encouraged me as an actress, but with the singing? -- not so much." Even so, Nixon did participate in an anniversary benefit for the New York Public Theater in 2006. "They said they were doing songs from past productions, and was there one I'd like to do? And I was like, yes!" With this, her face brightens as if bathed in an opening night's worth of klieg lights. "It was a song that I used to sing in my living room when I was 9."
Before she was a performer? "Before I was self-conscious," she clarifies, laughing. "It was 'Dance 10; Looks 3,' the 'tits and ass' song from A Chorus Line." She took her place in the evening's lineup alongside Eartha Kitt and Meryl Streep. "They really rehearsed and choreographed and costumed me. I had to wear heels and a sexy dress with the hair and makeup. It was terrifying. But it went well, I think."
She also sang at Parker's 40th birthday party -- a version of My Fair Lady's "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" with lyrics tailored to the women's long friendship. "It was about how I missed her when the show was over," Nixon says. "And Michael Patrick King, our writer and director, wrote some patter in the middle, like, 'Imagine having to stand next to the toothpick of the world for six years. I had to do that.'"
Parker, for her part, remembers the song as "one of the most surprising parts of the night. For some reason, Cynthia insists, almost pathologically, that she can't sing -- when really, she has a great voice and pitch -- which made it more courageous and meaningful that she got up there and sang to me." She also recalls that during long days on the set, they would all sing together "to keep ourselves awake. And Cynthia knows every song to every show."
The idea of Nixon getting punch-drunk on set and belting out "I Could Have Danced All Night" or "Adelaide's Lament" provides a nice counterpoint to what is most often mentioned about the actress's work: the depth and seriousness of her commitment. For a guest spot on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit last fall, when she played a killer pretending to have multiple personalities, "I got really involved in reading these devastating books about the disorder," Nixon says. "I take things so much more seriously than I need to." Davis remembers talking to her when she was shooting: "Usually she multitasks and carries on four conversations at once, but when I called she was like, 'I can't talk! I have to prepare!' That was a dark place when she did that role."
Still, Nixon tries to absorb the words of wisdom Davis once offered, courtesy of none other than George Clooney. "Kristin tells this story about when she was on Melrose Place, and she worried about making the scenes believable, and George told her, 'Honey, it's a romp. Just go with it.' I feel like I could use that advice."
She's also ready for a few leaps into the unknown. "For good or bad, I was raised to be extremely grateful for what I have," she says. "Whatever level I was at -- Little Darlings, Sex and the City -- it was like, wow, how did that happen? It's good and helpful, but it can keep you from thinking, what do I want next? As I get older, I try to think about what I want, instead of saying 'I can choose from these five things; which is best?' Because what I really want might not be any of them."
She flashes her quirky smile. "When I was 20, I think I needed to be told, 'Don't only do things you can control. Risk a lot more.' Now it's great to be taking risks."
Read more: How similar is Cynthia Nixon to her Sex and the City character?
Originally published in MORE magazine, May 2008.