The debate about whether women can truly ‘have it all’ is one that’s been endlessly explored – for better or worse – on screen, not least in HBO’s ground-breaking Sex and the City. Now, it’s emerged that one of the show’s stars, Kim Cattrall, chose to forgo IVF treatment because of her demanding work schedule.
Speaking to Piers Morgan in an episode of Life Stories, the actress revealed that when she married Mark Levinson in 1998, she considered opting for IVF in order to start a family. Given her hectic filming schedule while working on the first series of Sex and the City, though, she decided against the treatment, fearing it would be impossible to fit in to her long working hours.
‘I thought to myself, “Wow I have 19 hours days on this series,”’ she said. ‘I have weekends where I finish on Saturday morning. My Monday morning would start at 4.45 am and go to one or two in the morning. How could I possibly continue to do that, especially in my early 40s?” And then I realised what a commitment it was just to have the [IVF] procedures.’
‘I thought, “I don’t think this is going to happen,”’ she told Morgan. ‘It was the first moment, it was extraordinary, in my life where I thought maybe I’m just not going to do this.’
‘Yes, I think it’s part of being a woman to have [maternal feelings]. But obviously fate, timing, luck, destiny, I don’t know,’ she said.
Kim went on to explain that she decided to positively channel those feelings, by mentoring young women in the film and TV industry. ‘I thought I have a place to be a mom here, not a biological mom but a mom and an auntie and a friend. And that has really given me so much, as much as I give I get two-fold back,’ she said.
While Kim’s comments, made in the same Life Stories interview, that she has ‘never been friends with her Sex and the City co-stars, it’s certainly worth hearing them in the context the actress intended: followed with the caveat, ‘We’ve been colleagues and in some way, it’s a very healthy place to be.’
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