Is 'Divorce' Like 'Sex And The City?': Sarah Jessica Parker Talks New HBO Show

Sarah Jessica Parker stars in HBO's new show Divorce premiering this Sunday, October 9, about a woman going through the trials and tribulations of divorce.

SJP hasn't graced the small screen since playing the beloved Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO classic, "Sex and the City," over 12 years ago. So can we expect similarities between her role in the cult series and the one in "Divorce?" Hardly.

"I love the way the pilot episode opens because everyone's asking, "Oh, is this a spin-off of "Sex and the City?"" Parker said. "And the moment that the opening scene ends, and you see her give him the finger, you know it's very different."

"Divorce," in comparison to "Sex and the City," is dark. Set in the suburbs of New York during winter, Parker plays Frances, who works in a seemingly important job in Manhattan, but longs to open an art gallery. Her soon-to-be ex-husband, Robert (Thomas Haden Church), is unsuccessfully developing property, and ends up living on a half-finished work site. Their kids seem to take the divorce of their

parents in their stride.

Infidelity, loss of sex appeal, the mundane, grey matter that fills up years gone by of unhappiness between two people is all exposed, and then some.

“It’s not my nature to say, but I’m really proud of it and everyone involved,” Parker explained on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “Getting it right feels like an enormous achievement. It’s thrilling.”

Parker has been married to husband and fellow actor Matthew Broderick for 19 years, a lifetime by Hollywood standards, but Parker says her personal life is nothing like her character's on the show.

“What I do on screen doesn’t cross the placenta, do you know what I mean?” she explained. “I play all sorts of parts that I suppose one would wonder — but that’s my job, that’s what’s interesting to me, that’s why I wanted to tell this story and that’s why I was originally interested in this idea and finding writers who could create a tone and an environment and a landscape that would be interesting and exciting.”