Cynthia Nixon Doing Just Fine, Thanks For Asking
When Cynthia Nixon left the father of her children for another woman, it seemed only natural that the 25% of Sex and the City's female audience who identified with her character's "hard-edged, sensible" template would be thrown into a tailspin of scandalized despair. This, after all, was the woman they patterned their lives after; were they doomed to a life of she-love as well? So when another no-nonsense TV Cynthia, Nightline's Cynthia McFadden, sat down with the actress and tenderly broached the L-word subject (so tenderly, in fact, that the word is never uttered), she was surprised to learn the entire affair just was not that big a deal. A partial transcript:
Cynthia McFadden: Well some of what has come in the last years has been great, some of it hasn t been your favorite thing I suspect Front page headlines...
Cynthia Nixon: It s been OK. It s been OK.McFadden: Has it seemed unfair?
Nixon: No. I think people have been pretty good I have to say. I mean, you know, its thank god the world in which were living in. People, they understand and they re pretty respectful.
McFadden: Well that s good to hear. You know an old friend of mine says if you can live through the thing you think you can t and survive
Nixon: YeahMcFadden: The rest of life is a cakewalk.
Nixon: Yeah
McFadden: Was ?
Nixon: No, this was nothing I thought I couldn t survive. I mean, it was a little crazy being on the front page of the paper, and I had photographers outside my house for a day or two, but, it wasn t so bad.
Clearly, McFadden was looking for some camera-friendly waterworks, but Nixon had no intention of playing along. Had ABC assigned the interview to their far more skilled celebrity manipulator Barbara Walters, Nixon would have found herself quickly choking on her own despondent sobs when an innocuous conversation about breakfast rituals was expertly redirected into a pointed inquiry regarding the first time she "looked into a bathroom mirror and saw a lying mother staring back."
