The Run-Through: There is something Sarah Jessica Parker doesn’t understand, and that is why she and Candice Bergen are not friends. The two actors, who first starred together almost 25 years ago in the beloved Sex and the City episode “A Vogue Idea,” in which Candice–my mother—plays Enid Frick, an Anna Wintour-esque editrix icon, and edits Carrie Bradshaw’s 500-word treatise on men as accessories to smithereens. Enid has made SATC cameos ever since, and now returns for Season 2 of And Just Like That, in a delightful episode that includes Gloria Steinem, a peek at an aging pecker, and the phrase “Condé Nast gave me the golden parachute.”
To celebrate Enid’s return to the fold, and the return of the SATC spin-off, I dragged Candice down to the Condé Nast podcast studios at One World Trade Center with the lure of a conversation with Sarah Jessica and the promise of a cappuccino in the cafeteria (“You can see the Statue of Liberty!” she exclaimed from the 35th floor).
In preparation for our conversation, I rewatched the 2002 episode—filmed in Vogue’s former headquarters at 4 Times Square—for the first time since it aired (when I was a teenager), and was delighted to revisit the old Vogue offices where I worked for several years until we all moved downtown. First of all, the hemming and hawing about quitting, over a 500-word article about shoes, is a true joy (of course Carrie treats a one-page puff piece as if it’s a 10,000-word New Yorker profile on Netanyahu), not to mention the wonderful Ron Rifkin as Carrie’s creepily congenial editor and Enid bridge. It struck me and Chioma—both of us have written more 500-word pieces on shoes than we’d like to count—that our Carrie career parallels are uncanny! From Vogue writers (and editors) to podcasters (I even started my career at The New York Observer, where Candace Bushnell’s famous column that inspired the series ran), what better chapter of Carrie’s life to focus on—a meta moment indeed!
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Sarah Jessica joined us via Zoom, and the two actors reminisced about their first Vogue shoots—Candice was awed by Polly Mellen’s no-nonsense efficiency, Sarah Jessica had to trudge through a snowstorm to the studio, only to be greeted by Grace Coddington offering her an itty-bitty white bikini for the first shot. Sarah Jessica hand-wrote thank you notes to everyone on set (she still does)…Candice did not. We talked about motherhood, Murphy Brown, being at the center of the culture wars, and the best stationer on the Upper East Side. We were shocked to learn that according to Candice, she and the Murphy Brown costume designer invented the hole in the baseball cap for Murphy’s ponytail to stick through (we are having trouble fact-checking this, but cannot really believe it to be true, despite Candice’s protestations). We learned about the clause in Sarah Jessica’s contract that allowed her to keep Carrie’s entire wardrobe, which she has stored and catalogued not just by season but by episode and outfit! (All I have from Murphy Brown is a cat-print scarf!)
Sarah Jessica also asked Candice why they aren’t friends, and said that she will keep trying to text her despite Candice ghosting her. (I had to assure her this was not an issue unique to Sarah Jessica; in fact, at the time of recording, Candice had 232 unread text messages.) Candice insists she will definitely reply to any future texts or emails, I will be available for an assist, and just like that, a beautiful friendship was born in a windowless podcast studio.
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By Chloe Malle
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