Sarah Jessica Parker on Carrie’s Ongoing Aidan Entanglement: ‘It’s Hard Not to Search for That’

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Outlook Good,” Season 3, Episode 1 of “And Just Like That,” now streaming on Max.

Carrie Bradshaw’s return comes with — what else? — complications.

In the third season of “And Just Like That,” the sequel series to “Sex and the City,” Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is once again entangled with Aidan (John Corbett), despite the couple’s vow in the Season 2 finale to stay separate for five years so that Aidan can focus on his family life in Virginia. While the Season 3 premiere begins with Carrie pensively sending Aidan a postcard, it goes on to feature multiple attempts at phone sex between a pair who struggle to leave one another. Frustrated at just how out-of-reach Aidan seems, Carrie ends the episode by showing us a new side of herself: Sitting at her laptop and writing not a newspaper column but a fiction project, about an unnamed woman figuring out her life. 

All of which provides plenty for Parker to play. The actress — who, on top of promotional duties, is currently reading multiple books a day in her capacity as a judge for the U.K.’s Booker Prize — spoke to Variety about the delight she feels at continuing to play opposite Corbett’s Aidan, Carrie’s own first steps as a novelist, and the character’s journey, some 27 years since “Sex and the City” first began, toward finding herself. 

I found the decision to re-integrate Aidan into the show, after Carrie and he had decided to take a five-year break, really interesting. What did it feel like to play?

The decision — the sabbatical — was arrived at with both intending to honor it. I really do think that Carrie understood the reasons what Aidan felt he had to be a parent at home. It makes really good sense. And the ways in which they pursued this sabbatical were principled. But the reality of resisting this kind of company, having found one another again, is a whole different animal. There’s something meaningful — it’s hard to not search for that with a person for whom you feel such deep affection.

It was interesting watching Anthony and Carrie argue about the relationship at the ballet; I imagine some potential viewers hearing his critiques of the back-and-forth nature of how she’s handling Aidan and thinking, “He speaks for me.” Clearly showrunner Michael Patrick King is aware of audience expectations. And yet the relationship’s complications are what make it intriguing.

The writing did a really good job of allowing frivolity and whimsy and the joyfulness that Aidan brings to Carrie’s life, but they are inarguably grown-ups. So that has weight and ballast. And then it’s just Corbett — it’s just so pleasant.

One thing we love about Carrie is that she’s a true romantic, but that also means she’s yet to land on her happily-ever-after — it’s always about the journey. Will she ever find that happy ending, or is it about the constant pursuit? 

I think it’s possible she won’t find a person that is the destination point. But I’ve been trying to convey that — not to be confused with the person who enjoys the hunt over the kill, to be rather crude about it — but for her, it’s the discovery. One of our old bosses at HBO used to say that the destination is always home, and I really think that’s true. Carrie is looking for home, and that can elude you. For a long time, a very evolved, smart person that makes poor choices sometimes can still understand what that means. 

Given your love of reading, I was wondering whether there was something special about Carrie’s writing having shifted to this nascent novel she’s working on. 

I was really excited by this idea for a variety of reasons. Michael was very clever about telling this person’s story. Carrie thinks it’s separate and that it’s hard to summon this person, although the chapters that come easily, she isn’t recognizing have a parallel to her own life. 

I hope you’re enjoying being a Booker Prize judge.

Oh my God, someday I’ll talk to you about it. It’s pretty amazing.

This interview has been edited and condensed.