Kim Cattrall Biography

Filmography

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Fun Facts

Is an advocate for senior citizens.

2000: Presented at the GLAAD Media Awards to honor films and TV shows that accurately portray gay and lesbian people.

Studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art when she was eleven.

Was engaged to Daniel Benzali.

Dated former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, whom she met at the premiere of Tribute (1980).

Made her screen debut in Rosebud (1975) by Otto Preminger and later played in "Columbo: How to Dial a Murder (#7.4)" (1978).

Named one of People Magazine's "25 Most Intriguing People of 2001."

9/25/02: Hosted the 12th annual "A Magical Evening" gala at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, in celebration of the 50th birthday of Christopher Reeve. All proceeds of the black-tie gala and live auction benefited the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation (CRPF).

According to costume designer Ann Roth, the actress diligently took two months to diet herself down to a size four in order to play a bony society wife in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).

Is fluent in German.

One of the last participants in the studio "contract" system.

2000-2001: Capitalized on her role as a femme fatale on "Sex and the City" (1998) when she was hired by Pepsi as their television campaign spokesperson, appearing in steamy locker room- and Little Red Riding Hood-themed TV spots promoting their short-lived Pepsi One product.

6/7/05: Won a Glammy Award at the British Glamour magazine's Women of the Year Awards held in Berkeley Square Gardens, London, England. She won for Theatre Actress of the Year for her performance in the West End play, "Whose Life Is It Anyway?".

Was a member of the International Order of Job's Daughters at Bethel No. 8, Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada.

Friend of Isabelle Huppert.

Said on "Tracks" (1997) she understood that many fans didn't like the series finale of "Sex and the City" (1998). She believes that her character "Samantha Jones" would have left her younger boyfriend some weeks later.

Born in Liverpool, England, she moved with her parents at the age of three months to Canada and was raised in Little River, British Columbia, a small community on the eastern side of Vancouver Island.

Was immortalized in the song "Oh, Kim Cattrall" on the TV show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (1988). The song was performed by the character Crow T. Robot in an episode satirizing Cattrall's film City Limits (1984). Cattrall was so impressed by the song that not only did she send flowers to Trace Beaulieu (the voice of Crow), she also appeared at MST3K conventions to sign autographs.

Has an older sister who is a school teacher in Courtenay, British Columbia.

Lifelong Rudyard Kipling fan.

Her grandmother was a babysitter of Ringo Starr.

Kim has two older sisters and a younger brother.

Sang "Nobody Does It Better" over a TV satellite link for fellow-Liverpudlian Paul O'Grady on the occasion of his very last TV show broadcast, "The Paul O'Grady Show" (2004) (Dec. 2009).

There are so many avenues of performing. I'm not interested in the form of musical theater unless it's something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), which is a blast.

I don't know many women who can relate to Sharon Stone and the kind of movies she does. I don't know a lot of guys who can relate to Tom Cruise's movies because they're on a kind of fantastic level. I like movies I can relate to.

[on "Sex and the City" (1998)] The show is celebrating what it's like to be a woman. We do things people think about but don't vocalize. It gives men and women permission to talk in a way that is healthy.

I've been playing sexually aware women most of my life. At this point I expected to be playing moms and wives. It's exciting to play a femme fatale.

[on her role in Crossroads (2002/I), where she plays Britney Spears' mother, who abandons her daughter as a baby and later rejects her as a teen] It was one of the hardest jobs in my life. I had to be mean to Britney Spears. She is such a little Southern sweetie who is only 20. She was so nervous and so well-prepared, and I had to reject her on screen because I'm her horrible mother who has left her.

I'm finding now in my 40s that the less makeup I wear, the better. I think softer is better as you get older. With everything. Except men.

I prefer younger men. In some ways, they are much more open to a woman being stronger and independent then some of the men my age.

To me, 15 minutes worth of absolute genius in a film is so much better than two hours of mediocrity. I would rather pay to see something different like that.

People search me out, whether it's on a beach in Australia or walking down the street in New York, running after me and crying, "I had cancer diagnosed when your character was going through it, and you saved my emotional state at the time because I felt frozen". It's both amazing and devastating, because as an actress I imagined what it would be like - but these women's hair actually did fall out, they didn't have skullcaps and make-up.

The scene where Samantha takes her wig off when she is suffering from breast cancer, and throws it across the room wasn't in the script, it was something spontaneous I did [on "Sex and the City" (1998)]. Samantha's wigs became just another accessory. We didn't want the storyline to feel like "Oh my God, we're going to get her head shaved". Despite what was happening to her, we felt that her character could withstand it and so you went through it with her. She carried off the afro wigs, the pink wigs, it was really fun. Obviously, there was a serious side to that storyline, as well, and I got some very intimate responses

The clothes in "Sex and the City" (1998) were a blast! My favourite part was working with Patricia Field, the costume designer. It was just insane. My wardrobe was more outrageous than raunchy. Yes, the colours were bright and the necklines were super-low, but my behaviour was more daring than my wardrobe. I think some of the other characters' choices were more, "Soho trash queens", but Samantha was a professional woman who worked and lived uptown, so she was always well put together. For the first season, I had a connection at Yves Saint-Laurent, and I wore YSL suits with a brooch or a hat, or a bag that was kind of fun or zing, but never too raunchy.

What I wear is a reflection of where I am going and how I am feeling. If I'm in a good mood, it's got to be cashmere and jeans - just something comfy, soft and warm. When I'm down I might find something that I haven't worn for a while that was bought for me - or wear a brooch or a pair of shoes that are like old friends. If you look closely, you know a lot about someone by what they wear. Costumes are like fitting into a skin, whatever the period is, and I have never played anyone that had actually existed before, so my role in My Boy Jack was really exciting.

I'm 51 and I think I look my age, but I don't want to be 20 any more or even 30 or 40. Besides, I'm too terrified to get any proper work so I've had just little things done. I have a big crease between my eyebrows and I use Botox to get rid of that, but that's kind of it. I'm scared of surgery because I don't want to look in the mirror and not recognise who's looking back. I don't want to be in a room, and to have people turn when I leave and say, "what happened?"

I've seen some women who are not particularly attractive but they have an assurance, and there's something so attractive about someone who doesn't have to work so hard. Still, I really like it when my boyfriend makes suggestions about what I wear. I like him going into the closet and taking out the cowboy boots, and finding the white jeans, and sometimes I'll be wearing my hair up and he'll say, "you know what, put the ponytail a little higher".

I tend to look somewhere other than the media for my definition of what is beautiful. Is that a heavily retouched 18-year-old or a 40-year-old on that front cover? I don't think so; nobody looks like that. I look at people such as Helen Mirren or Judi Dench, these amazing women who look great, but they look like their age, and I think why would anyone want to lower themselves to look like an alien? Sex appeal is all about confidence, and that comes from self-knowledge.

I'm inspired by actresses like Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe. You can't teach what they do.

There's no better feeling than when you know that you're going to be on stage each night, trying to make the part better and different for an audience. That's just the way I am. I don't think I'm going to change now.

It's no use saying (the cast of "Sex and the City" (1998)) are best friends - because we're not. And most of my work has been outside New York, so I haven't been around. They'd have had to travel to see me and nobody did. But it felt like no time had passed when we met up again, even though everyone seemed nerve-racked.

When I finally expressed my sexual frustrations to girlfriends, to my amazement many of them were going through the same problems. You just can't tell, because it's not widely discussed. It takes a lot of courage to admit, even to yourself, that you're not getting satisfaction from your husband or boyfriend.

On signing, at age 18, a long-term contract with Otto Preminger: It was an archaic system. You were, basically, under the control of one man and his whims. He wasn't easy and it wasn't an easy time. He wasn't a nurturing director and I thought, 'Maybe I don't want to be a film actor, after all.'

On the end of "Sex and the City" (1998): My job came to an end, and it was awful to say goodbye to such a great character. As far as I was concerned, I was sacked. It was the end. I had dedicated myself to the show, doing countless 17-hour days, and I had detached myself from (then-husband) Mark Levinson.

I am no size zero or super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.

I've been in love for most of my life, but that love has been for my work.

In Canada's Pacific Northwest, where I grew up, the beaches were strewn with thousands of fugitive logs that had escaped the water transporters bringing them down toward the prospering lumber sawmills and pulp and paper factories all around Vancouver Island. On our gray sand shores, those shaved logs became home to insects, birds and small rodents and made great hiding places or impromptu tents. A favorite childhood game was to see who could traverse the most beached logs without ever touching the sand. As teenagers, we'd drive out to the beaches with our sleeping bags in tow, stack up smaller moveable logs and build bonfires before bedding down to sleep protected by those fallen trees.