Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.

She is known for her role as Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO comedy drama series Sex and the City (1998–2004), for which she won two Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. The character was widely popular during the airing of the series and was later recognized as one of the greatest female characters in American television. She later reprised the role in the films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), as well as the revival series And Just Like That... (2021–present).

Parker made her Broadway debut at the age of 11 in the 1976 revival of The Innocents, before going on to star in the title role of the Broadway musical Annie in 1979. She made her first major film appearances in the 1984 dramas Footloose and Firstborn. Her other film roles include L.A. Story (1991), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Hocus Pocus (1993), Ed Wood (1994), The First Wives Club (1996), The Family Stone (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), New Year's Eve (2011), and Hocus Pocus 2 (2022).

In 2012, Parker returned to television for the first time since Sex and the City, portraying Isabelle Wright in three episodes of the Fox musical series Glee. She starred as Frances Dufresne in the HBO comedy drama series Divorce (2016–2019), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Since 2005, she has run her own production company, Pretty Matches, which has created content for HBO and other networks.

Early life
Sarah Jessica Parker was born in Nelsonville, Ohio, the daughter of Barbara Parker (née Keck), a nursery-school operator and teacher, and Stephen Parker, an entrepreneur and journalist. She was one of a total of eight children from her parents' marriage and her mother's second marriage; her full siblings include actors Timothy Britten Parker and Pippin Parker. Parker's parents divorced when she was 3½ years old, and her mother married Paul Forste, a truck driver and account executive. Stephen, a native of Brooklyn, is Jewish (from a family from Eastern Europe) and his family's original surname was "Bar-Kahn" ("son of Kohen"). Barbara is of German, and some English, descent. Parker has identified as culturally Jewish, like her father, although she has had no religious training. Parker's parents struggled to support their large family often the electricity could be shut off, or the family would have to forgo Christmases and birthdays for lack of money. Nonetheless, she has stated: "I wouldn't change any of it, for anything... for the most part, we had everything we needed. Not always, but for the most part." Parker's mother immersed her children in culture and extracurricular activities. She often took them to free public institutions like the ballet and the theater in Cincinnati, so that they lived "full, rich lives", emulating the New York artistic scene.

As a young girl, Parker trained in singing and ballet, and was soon cast in the Broadway revival of William Archibald's play The Innocents. Her family moved to Cincinnati and then to Dobbs Ferry, New York, near New York City, so that she could get specialized training. There, her mother and stepfather helped Parker develop her career as a child actress. In 1977, the family moved to the newly opened planned community on Roosevelt Island, in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, and later to Manhattan. The family later moved to Englewood, New Jersey, where Parker attended Dwight Morrow High School.

Parker attended the School of American Ballet in New York City, the New York Professional Children's School, the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, and Hollywood High School in Los Angeles.

Career

1974–1997: Early acting career 

Parker and four siblings appeared in a production of The Sound of Music at the outdoor Municipal Theatre (Muny) in St. Louis, Missouri. She was selected for a role in the new 1977–81 Broadway musical Annie: first in the small role of "July" and then succeeding Andrea McArdle and Shelley Bruce in the lead role of the Depression-era orphan, beginning March 1979. Parker held the role for a year. In 1982, Parker obtained the lead role of the CBS sitcom Square Pegs, which lasted just one season. Her performance as a shy teen who showed hidden depths, nevertheless, was acclaimed by critics. In the three years that followed, Parker was cast in four films: the most significant being Footloose (1984) and Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), with Helen Hunt. In 1986, Parker appeared in Flight of the Navigator, a Disney science fiction film.

In the romantic comedy L.A. Story (1991), Parker took on the role of a ditzy aspiring spokesmodel meeting a television meteorologist; both the film and her performance garnered positive reviews. She would star with Nicolas Cage, as the girlfriend of a commitment-phobic man, in the film Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), and play one in a villainous trio of witches in the Disney fantasy family comedy Hocus Pocus (1993), alongside Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy. Honeymoon in Vegas was a critical success, earning US$35m while Hocus Pocus rated average with reviewers and made US$39 million in the US, but became a cult film due to strong DVD sales and large television following. In 1993, she also starred as a police diver opposite Bruce Willis in the film Striking Distance, and in 1994, she appeared opposite Johnny Depp in the critically acclaimed biographical drama Ed Wood as the titular character's girlfriend, Dolores Fuller. She headlined the romantic comedy Miami Rhapsody (1995), playing a woman who has some misgivings about her fiancé, and starred in the off-Broadway play Sylvia, alongside future husband Matthew Broderick.

In 1996, she appeared in another Tim Burton-directed movie, Mars Attacks!, in which she made part of a large ensemble cast consisting of Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, among others, portraying a chat-show host whose head is transposed with that of her chihuahua by the invading aliens. The romantic comedy The First Wives Club saw Parker take on the role of a dim-witted but manipulative fiancée, and also reunite with Hocus Pocus collaborator Bette Midler. The film was a critical darling and a major commercial success, grossing US$105million at the North American box office, and it developed a cult following among middle-aged women. Her other 1996 release was The Substance of Fire, in which she reprised her 1991 stage role. In 1997, Parker appeared as a washed-up former child actress in the little seen comedy 'Til There Was You.

1998–2004: Sex and the City 

The script for the HBO dramedy series Sex and the City was sent to Parker. Set in New York City and based on Candace Bushnell's 1997 book of the same name, the show follows the lives of a group of four women—three in their mid-thirties and one in her forties—who, despite their different natures and ever-changing sex lives, remain inseparable and confide in each other. Its creator Darren Star wanted her for the project, and despite some doubts about being cast in a long-term television series, Parker agreed to star. Her role was that of Carrie Bradshaw, the narrator and main protagonist, with each episode structured around her train of thought while writing her weekly column "Sex and the City" for the fictitious paper, the New York Star. The response towards her performance was positive during the show's run and in the years immediately thereafter. Her character was widely popular during the airing of the series and was later recognized as one of the greatest female characters in American television. In 2009, The Guardian named Bradshaw as an icon of the decade, saying "Carrie Bradshaw did as much to shift the culture around certain women's issues as real-life female groundbreakers." Parker received two Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards for her performance.

2004–2015: Continued film roles 
In late 2005, Parker reunited with First Wives Club co-star Diane Keaton for her first film in years, the seasonal family dramedy The Family Stone, in which she played an uptight, contemporary New York City career woman. James Berardinelli, in his review, wrote: "The talented cast helps. Sarah Jessica Parker, finding that there is life after Sex in the City, has no difficulty with [her role]'s arc. Of all the characters in the movie, she undergoes the biggest transformation, and Parker aces it". Budgeted at US$18 million, it was a commercial success, grossing over US$92 million worldwide. For her role, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress Comedy. Her next film was the romantic comedy Failure to Launch, starring with Matthew McConaughey as an interventionist hired to get a 35-year-old man out of the home of his parents. It was released on March 10