The actress, starring in her first film in three years, and director Fabien Constant also opened up about why New York was the perfect place to set his film about a woman dealing with a devastating medical diagnosis.
Sarah Jessica Parker stars in her first film in three years in Blue Night, which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.
The film, directed by Fabien Constant and written by Laura Eason, tells the story of a jazz-pop singer named Vivienne (Parker), who has her world shattered after receiving some bad medical news.
Renee Zellweger, Taylor Kinney, Jacqueline Bisset, Simon Baker and Common also star in the film.
Although Parker has a background in musical theater, she found singing in the movie to be "theoretically terrifying." But, she explained, “It’s a song that has a story, and sometimes that’s easier to focus on than singing well. To be a good interpreter, sometimes that makes what’s scary easier.”
Beyond that, Parker called starring in the film "a joy." “As hard as the role was, it was happy," she explained. "It wasn’t easy, but it shouldn’t be easy. It was happy."
Inspired by the 1962 film Cleo From 5 to 7, Blue Night tells Vivienne's tale within the story of New York City over a 24-hour period. At Thursday night's premiere at Manhattan SVA Theatre, Parker and Constant talked about the joy of filming "unexplored" parts of the city.
“We were excited about all the areas unexplored in this city. There are all these pockets yet to discover, cinematically," said Parker, who also produced the film. "There are lots of complications about shooting in New York, but we were so excited about finding those places and reminding audiences of this island — it has so much that is interesting."
Constant added, “I feel like this movie comes from a lot of things and a lot of inspiration. It was the portrait of a woman and the portrait of a city. It’s a lot of all those beautiful ladies using the city to reflect their moods and what they’re going through.” The film uses the streets of New York and the vivid imagery to portray who the characters are. “New York City is such a great city for this. If you’re in a good mood, it’s the best energy city. If you’re in a bad mood, it’s the most aggressive city in the world,” Constant said.
As for the experience of working with Constant, who's making his narrative feature debut helming Blue Night, Parker said, "I speak on behalf of every single person who worked on this movie from preproduction to the final mix — he is everything we hoped he would be. Sincerely, I would say this behind his back. He is an inspired and inspiring storyteller. He’s cinematic, he loves sound and sight. He loves actors and story and details and finding new ways of looking at the hinge of a door.”
She added, “Sincerely, it was one of the great experiences of my professional life. It was happy every single day, we were happy all day long."
