Can I just vent for a second? Harper’s Bazaar just went through an online redesign and it SUCKS!! Bazaar used to be one of my favorite mags to check online because everything was extremely user-friendly as far as slideshows and accessing the full celebrity interview. Anyway, Sarah Jessica Parker is the September cover girl for Bazaar, so I was wrong – it’s not Scarlett Johansson. You can see SJP’s photoshoot here – she was photographed by Terry Richardson, and the shots aren’t bad at all. The whole shoot is rather dated, though – the clothes look like they’re from Sex & the City (the TV show) and SJP has been Photoshopped to look like that era too. You can read SJP’s interview here and here are some highlights:

She’s collaborating with Manolo Blahnik: “She has a fan base in the fashion world that’s extraordinary, and it’s truly because she’s such a nice person,” says George Malkemus, president of Manolo Blahnik. Recently he teamed up with Parker to create an SJP line of shoes in the $250 to $450 range, to be sold at Nordstrom starting in February. “Were it anyone but Sarah Jessica, I wouldn’t have done it,” Malkemus says. Parker was awaiting the first samples from Italy when we spoke, but expect feminine shapes, plenty of low heels, and unusual color combinations like navy and mocha. “The shoe business is so exciting because we don’t have to think of black and brown as the only neutrals anymore,” she says.

SJP’s tortured history with collaborations and fashion lines: With her new shoes, Parker may finally get real fashion respect. Her cute apparel line, Bitten, bit the dust when her partners went bankrupt. Then came Halston, a label with a great legacy but a nest of problems. Parker still took the plunge. “We’ve all worked with complicated people,” she tells me, “and I always think that I can disarm them. I love collaborating. I’m a great listener and learner, and I don’t think I know more than they do. I’m transparent.” Instead Parker largely got pain for her trouble, and, contrary to media reports, she did not get paid. “I really did work for free,” she says. In the end, “some cultures can’t be undone.”

What she has going on: Next month Parker returns to Off Broadway after a long absence, costarring with the elegant Blythe Danner in The Commons of Pensacola, a dramedy written by Amanda Peet, based on the Madoff scandal. She’s also in the midst of developing a series for HBO, set in New York, that promises to explore the darker aspects, including infidelity, of what it means to have it all. Meanwhile, she is producing a documentary for AOL Originals about one of her passions, New York City Ballet. She also finds time to raise money for Democratic causes, holding events for President Obama and, most recently, New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio.

Maintaining her “image”: “I don’t think I’ve ever spent 10 minutes calculating my image. I can’t even recall a conversation.”

Rumors of Matthew Broderick’s alleged affair: “Yeah, I didn’t comment on it,” Parker acknowledges, adding, “People have asked me about my marriage, ‘How do you make it work, and I say, ‘We don’t talk about it.’ That’s not really true. It’s sort of a nasty response.” She thinks for a moment. “Matthew and I come from a different time and place. When we were young people, all we ever wanted was to be good working actors. We didn’t think of fame or money because, honestly, money was never part of the dream. It was to work in theater, to be around those people whose work I was in total awe of. I never saw the trappings; nobody talked about being a celebrity. So when our marriage came up in conversation, it wouldn’t occur to us that we were obligated to respond to allegations or gossip. You have to be a bit circumspect, but you also have to take up a position, and you have to stick to it.

She loves Matthew: “There’s also the reality of your life,” she continues. “I love Matthew Broderick. Call me crazy, but I love him. We can only be in the marriage we are. We’re very devoted to our family and our lives. I love our life. I love that he’s the father of my children, and it’s because of him that there’s this whole other world that I love.”

The new HBO show she’s producing (and may star in): “It’s about a woman, a beloved talk-show host out of Minneapolis, whose husband is a cook. He sort of put his career on hold while she had this big success, and ultimately they move to New York to give his career a chance. But they’re floundering. He’s a hothead and he can’t really keep a job. Deeply lovable.” In the emotional turmoil her character winds up having an affair. “When we started working on this,” she says, “it became clear that women in their 40s are having affairs, and if they’re not having an affair, then one of their best friends is. How do we treat our marriages, and how can you be deeply involved and in love with someone else and also be in love with your husband? How are you a good mother? And what does it do to a marriage to be so deeply distracted elsewhere?”

Her daughters: “They come to me and say, ‘I don’t want to wear that; it’s not beautiful.’ I don’t know where these ideas come from because we don’t talk a lot about it in our house. We don’t hold up examples of what’s feminine, what’s pretty.” (And, yes, her girls are into playing dress-up, though not yet with her clothes: “They’re more drawn to hideous cheap fabrics and sparkly colors.”)

On critical thinking: But in a broader sense, she laments that “critical thinking is being shuffled off to Siberia. It’s no good for any of us. It’s no good for my son. Sometimes he has opinions, and I go, ‘James Wilkie …’ He knows I’m going to say, ‘Please don’t be so glib. Let’s talk about it.’ I’m terrified he’s just arriving at a point of view because he’s read a snippet instead of a whole piece.” She laughs lightly. “I feel like a broken record, but I’m genuinely concerned about who we are.”

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

That stuff about women having affairs is… interesting. She talks about it like it happened to her or someone close to her. It probably has happened to someone close to her. As for the allegations of Broderick’s affair years ago… I give her credit for answering the question head-on and not shutting the interview down in a flurry of denial. I think her most interesting statement is, “We can only be in the marriage we are.” As in, she takes it as it comes and she’s not trying to make her marriage sound like it’s the most epic and romantic thing ever. She makes her marriage sound realistic and pragmatic, although… it would be interesting to hear HIS side of it.

Photos courtesy of Terry Richardson/Bazaar.