Risque Business
Just as Cynthia Nixon and her fellow femmes fatales
return to the big screen, the Sex and the City 2 actress
reveals the things that get her tuned in and turned on.
by Laura Raposa 
Photographs by Jason Bell |
ACTRESS CYNTHIA NIXON admits she played “a string of nymphos”
in her day, but she confesses she feels sexier in her own skin today,
at 44, than she did slinking around a stage or purring into cameras
in her twenties.
“It’s so much easier now, unless you’re one of those cheerleaders
or football players who were gorgeous in their youth,” says
the born-and-bred Manhattanite, who reprised her role as flamehaired,
tart-tongued working mom Miranda Hobbes in the recent
flick Sex and the City 2. “I think it’s easier to be sexier as you get
older because you know who you are and you’re more confident.”
While Miranda’s “liaisons” hardly set the screen on fire, Nixon’s
real sex life caused a firestorm of headlines in 2003 when she
left the father of her two children (Samantha, now 13, and Charlie,
seven) for a woman she met while raising money for public schools.
The Tony- and Emmy-winning actress confesses she was drawn
to community organizer Christine Marinoni for her individualism—
a trait Nixon finds irresistible.
Since sexiness has been such a huge part of her acting career, we
asked Nixon what sexy means to her off camera.
Sexy is...
Speaking up. “Activists can
either be appealing or a real
turnoff. There are those people
about whom you just want to say,
‘Ugh, please, go sit down’; those
people give activists a bad name. I
also think an activist is somebody
in a fight that doesn’t have
anything to do with them. On the other hand, I do believe in speaking up
for something that would improve your life and directly affect yourself and
your family. For instance, when I fight for public schools or gay marriage, I
do it because my kids are in public school and I want to get married.”
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VARIED,
POWERFUL
ROLES.
“ALL
ACTORS—OK,
MOST
ACTORS—
LONG FOR
VARIETY. I
FEEL LIKE
MERYL STREEP
SET HERSELF
UP FOR A
LONG CAREER
BECAUSE OF
THE EXTREME
CHARACTERS
SHE DID
IN HER
YOUTH. THE
ACCENTS, THE
MIMICKING;
THOSE
WERE HER
TRADEMARKS.
SHE’S VERY
SEXY.” |
|
Redheads. “Tilda Swinton, the Scottish redhead
who won an Academy Award for her role in Michael
Clayton, is very sexy. I’m drawn to her. She’s so
fascinating and mysterious, and I find her very, very
real. As for men, Philip Seymour Hoffman is sexy.
He can be so transformational. I love to watch him
because he feels ve
ry authentic in what he’s doing.”
Being happy.
“Miranda wasn’t feeling
too sexy in Sex and the
City 2 because she was
very unhappy. She had
gotten herself in a bad
place in her life, and
when that’s happening
to you, you don’t project
sexiness. But when that
happens, stay away from
people who want to
rescue you! They’re not
going to make you feel
sexier.”
| IDIOSYNCRASY. “I THINK PEOPLE WHO
ARE INDIVIDUALS AND PEOPLE WHO
ARE CUTTING THEIR OWN PATHS ARE
SEXY. I NEVER LIKED THE PRETTIEST
OR THE HANDSOMEST OR THE MOST
POPULAR; I’M DRAWN MORE TO THE
IDIOSYNCRATIC. I FIND MAINSTREAM
PEOPLE MUCH MORE INTIMIDATING.” |
|
|
Intellect. “I find smart people
very sexy. They’re people who
can connect with you. Yes, there are smart people
who can just sit there and isolate themselves or
show off. But I find smart people are often good at
connecting. They want to know stuff about you and glean every bit of information
they can about you. I learn
wonderful stuff from smart
people and therefore have
a connection. I’d rather be
smart than sexy. However,
I’d prefer to be sexy to my
partner rather than be sexy
to the world.”
THE PREQUEL
Cityfied star Nixon grows
wistful when remembering
her childhood summers on
Nantucket, foraging through
the Penny Patch for sweets
and sprawling out on the
lawn for story time at the
Nantucket Atheneum.
“I went every summer
until I was 16 or 17,” she says
during a respite from all the
Sex-y talk. “It wasn’t for the
entire summer, just a few
weeks. It was the only place
we went. My mother had a
good friend who grew up
there, and her family had
a few houses. It was just
wonderful.”
Her parents fled their
Manhattan apartment
to stay with friends at
Washington and Coffin
Streets, a convenient spot
for their only daughter to
run through cobblestone
lanes and fetch piping-hot
doughnuts from The
Downyfl ake, or take in a
concert at the Gazebo at
Harbor Square. “There used
to be a place—The Enchanted
Dollhouse—where a
magnifi cent old lady with
white hair and a cameo
worked. She was tall and
wore Victorian clothes with
those white collars,” Nixon
reminisces. “It was in a
cottage just above Main
Street. She had everything—
dolls, toys, books. It was like
Willy Wonka. What a magical
world for a child.”
Nixon was a bookworm
when she was young, so
her visits to the Nantucket
Atheneum were more frequent
than her penny-candy
shopping. “Storytime on
the lawn? Oh, that was my
favorite,” she says.
Nixon shared her love of
the itty-bitty isle with her
kids, Samantha and Charlie,
during a trip there in 2004.
“The beaches are really amazing, and the shops so
wonderful,” she says. “And I
love how much preserved
land there is.”
Her home in Montauk—
the easternmost tip of
New York’s Long Island—
reminds her of Nantucket’s
wild shores and sea-swept
dunes. “It has a lot in common
with the island with
all its beachy terrain,” she
says, adding that Montauk
Point State Park, with its
18th-century lighthouse,
reminds her of Brant Point.
Nixon didn’t dish many
details from her teenage
years on the island, like her
fellow Nantucketer Ben
Stiller has been known to
do. Stiller, whose mom,
Anne Meara, played
Cynthia’s mother-in-law
on Sex and the City, got up
on stage during last year’s
film festival storytelling
event to share that he lost
his virginity on the island.
Nixon, sadly, has no
memory of any such rite
of passage on the isle. “Um,
no, I don’t think so,” she
laughs.—L.R.
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