Balance: Healthy Hollywood LivingKim Cattrall: ‘I Have the Same Issues as Every Woman’
Anyone who was a fan of "Sex and the City" knows that Kim Cattrall, who portrayed the sexy Samantha Jones, has a phenomenal physique. After all, we got to see quite a bit of it every week for six seasons of the HBO hit series. Still, the actress, 54, admits to omg! in this exclusive interview that she's not as comfortable with her body as her incredibly confident alter ego was. When it comes to filming scenes in the buff, Kim says she doesn't "think of it as [viewers] seeing me naked. I think that you're seeing a character naked. I can't do it as Kim," she adds. "I'm too embarrassed."
"I'm a real girl, who lives in the real world, who has cellulite and body image problems," she continues, "and is inundated with visions [of other women] -- that are nowhere near any kind of reality -- that you look at and think, 'Well, I should have a leg like that,' or 'I should have a stomach like that,'" she notes. "And I don't. I have the same issues as every woman on the planet does and I deal with them as best I can. But, ultimately, I have to embrace them because that's the ass I have."
Kim has also embraced the fact that as an actress, it's her job to stay in shape. "The camera puts weight on you, so you've got to be underweight a little bit," she admits. "I try to work out at least once a day, for an hour. Luckily, I live in New York, so if I can't get to the gym for an hour, I can walk around. And, of course, you've got to watch what you eat." That's why Cattrall -- who says she loves food -- is so excited about her gig as the current spokesperson for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, which is a product she actually uses!
"I use it for dietary reasons," she notes. "I'm in my 50s, so the zero grams of trans fat is a good thing for me, and I like the taste of it. I think that, for me, it's a real useful kind of arsenal in my weight-reducing regime, which has been a part of my life since I was in my late teens."
It also came in handy when she needed to shed the 20 pounds she put on for her role in the indie flick, "Monica Velour," a dark comedy about a nerdy teen who gets to meet his favorite retired porn star-turned-stripper, portrayed by Cattrall, who is struggling to make ends meet as a single mom.
"Playing this role was about letting go, letting go of an image of this specific type of woman and inhabiting something else," explains Kim, noting that it was "scary easy" for her to pack on the extra weight, but definitely worth it -- as it was a role she desperately wanted to take on, considering there aren't a whole lot of juicy scripts out there for women in their 50s.
"I don't get any work in Hollywood. I get work overseas, or I get work in little independent films. I do theater. On film, they still want me to basically play a paler version of Samantha and I'm not interested in doing it. It's frustrating," she states matter-of-factly. "I'm lucky enough to have other alternatives. I don't have kids, I'm not in a relationship, I can do what I want as far as following what makes me happy, and what makes me happy is playing these roles of these multi-dimensional, complicated, brilliant women. I find that really exciting, instead of some friggin' rom-com where some guy is playing a practical joke because he's got a crush on [the girl]. I mean, please, I'm in my 50s. I can't do that. And I don't want to play the mother of the bride just yet. Where do you go to age in this culture? I don't know. There's no place to do it."
Of course, "SATC" fans wouldn't complain if Cattrall brought Samanth Jones to life again on the big screen -- or even the small screen for that matter -- but they shouldn't count on it.
"It seems like people have moved on," says Kim. "There are other shows now. If ['Sex and the City'] does live on, who knows what it will be, or if there's a need for it. I guess time will tell."
Check out one of Kim's sultry I Can't Believe It's Not Butter ads below -- and the trailer for "Monica Velour" (out on DVD August 16), where you'll get to see a very different side of Ms. Cattrall.
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