Matthew Broderick had no desire to become the next Mr. Big.
The 62-year-old actor revealed why he never appeared in “Sex and the City” despite his wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, being the show’s star during its six seasons from 1998 to 2004.
While appearing on the Thursday episode of SiriusXM’s “This Life of Mine with James Corden” podcast, host James Corden asked Broderick, “Is it true that there was a moment or there were multiple times that you were asked to play a part in ‘Sex and the City’ and you opted not to?”
“It’s a little bit true,” Broderick admitted. “I don’t even know that I remember that well. Whenever there was a part that I could do, I couldn’t do it, is really all that happened.”
However, there were certain roles the “Painkiller” star had no interest in taking on.
“But also sometimes it was like, ‘Do you want to do two days as the premature ejaculator?’ and I’d be, ‘You know, well, I don’t know…'”
“And this would come direct from Sarah. She’d come home and say…” Corden, 46, teased before Broderick quipped, “No.”
“Oh, this would come through very professional channels,” Corden continued. “She wouldn’t come home and say, ‘Honey, I found the perfect part for you. The premature ejaculator.’ That feels like, I think she’s chosen the right method to go through your agent.”
“Yeah, no, they were very professional,” Broderick said. “I wish that I had done it or been in it. That was her thing and that would be stunting me or something. I don’t know. It just never worked out. I love that show and I would have been delighted to be in it, but it just never lined up right.”
The role ultimately went to Justin Theroux, who played short-story writer Vaughn Wysel in Season 2, Episode 15, “Shortcomings.”
The 53-year-old also had a cameo as Jared, an up-and-coming author and acquaintance of Carrie’s friend Stanford, in Season 1’s “The Monogamists.”
Although the real-life couple never crossed paths on the beloved New York City rom-com series, Parker, 59, may have revealed more about their dynamic than fans realize.
“I’d get so nervous,” she told the New York Times in a 2020 interview with her husband of 27 years. “Like, ‘Matthew’s here! Don’t look at me!’ I’m getting hives just thinking about you being on set.”
The pair are parents to James Wilkie, 21, and twin daughters Tabitha Hodge and Marion Loretta Elwell, 13.
Broderick and Parker did mix business with pleasure for Neil Simon’s Broadway comedy “Plaza Suite,” which ran for the first time in 1968.
In 2022, they took the stage and performed as one of three couples staying in a suite at the iconic New York City hotel two years after coronavirus delayed the play.
During an interview with the WSJ Magazine in 2020, Broderick noted that many people wonder why the duo hasn’t collaborated on more projects.
“We’d always put the kibosh on it. We didn’t even discuss it,” Parker responded.
She added, “I think for practical reasons and for personal reasons. The personal reasons were, Why would we do that? We were both happy working in our separate professional lives. And then, we have children. There are discussions about who will be home when. And what does theater demand versus movies or television.”
