Nicole Ari Parker is back as Lisa Todd Wexley in the new season of And Just Like That... And this time, LTW finally gets her big moment — creating a 10-part PBS documentary about history’s unsung “Sheroes” — that’s female heroes to you and I.
Off-screen, Parker’s own career is just as full. At 54, she’s fresh off an Audelco Award win for her stage role in The Refuge Plays, with a new part in DC Studios’ Lanterns ahead and a CV that includes Boogie Nights, Empire, Remember the Titans and Soul Food, where she met her husband, actor Boris Kodjoe.
But while her character exudes Upper East Side polish, Parker admits to The Standard that she’s not always quite so poised — especially when visiting the UK. A running joke in the new series follows Rosie O’Donnell’s character falling for every New York tourist trap following her brief dalliance with Miranda, and Parker confesses she’s done them all when she visited London.
“I am too embarrassed to tell you what I’ve done…” she laughs. “I’ve walked across the street like the Beatles. I’ve gone into the red phone booth. I’ve had the chips. I’ve stood in front of the castle with the guards.”
“Don’t ruin my lovely reputation of high fashion and class,” she jokes. “I get into the taxi cabs — I wait for the old-fashioned ones. And high tea! I took my kids to The Ritz when they were little. Moving right along…”
Despite the poise of her on-screen persona, Parker is refreshingly candid about the moments she’d love to redo — decisions and insecurities from earlier in her life. “Oh yeah, I had that one boyfriend,” she says. “I would go back and tell her exactly what she should’ve said.”
She adds: “But also I wish I could also go back and give myself a little backspace button on the insecurities. It’s not insecurity — but the worrying, you know we always want to make the right choice, like the consequences were so terrifying and now that I am a grown-up I’m like, ‘if the consequences are crazy I can handle it. I am not going to not do this’.
“I have so much courage which gives me so much energy, it makes me so much more productive and I still want good skin and [to] have sex with my husband, like nothing has really changed — except that I have giant children, whom I have to look up to talk to.”
And while she’s fully embraced LTW’s power-dressing, Parker admits the role has made her rethink a few of her own past looks. “I would go back and choose better clothes,” she says with a laugh. “Now that I’ve been in LTW’s shoes, I’m like, ‘What is that outfit?’”
And Just Like That... airs weekly on Fridays at 9pm on Sky Comedy and NOW. The previous two seasons are available to stream on NOW
