{"id":19276,"date":"2014-07-17T09:21:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T01:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=19276"},"modified":"2014-07-16T21:23:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T13:23:20","slug":"kim-cattrall-explores-aging-in-new-hbo-canada-series-sensitive-skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/07\/17\/kim-cattrall-explores-aging-in-new-hbo-canada-series-sensitive-skin\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Cattrall explores aging in new HBO Canada series \u2018Sensitive Skin\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kim<\/a>
Kim Cattrall chatting with etalk on the red carpet for the Canadian premiere of “Meet Monica Velour.” Photo from Canadian Film Centre \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014The first show Kim Cattrall ever binge-watched was the BBC\u2019s \u201cSensitive Skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cattrall was performing on stage in London at the time and met with then-BBC comedy boss Jon Plowman to discuss a different project. But when he introduced her to the half-hour comedy starring Joanna Lumley as a woman facing a midlife crisis, Cattrall was hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are questions that I\u2019m asking myself as a woman. So if I\u2019m asking myself, other women must be asking themselves,\u201d she said in a phone interview. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a social commentary about midlife crisis. I thought, \u2018Wow, this could be really interesting in North America.\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n

After a long road to the small screen, Cattrall\u2019s \u201cSensitive Skin\u201d will premiere Sunday on HBO Canada. The series co-stars and is also executive produced and directed by Don McKellar (\u201cThe Grand Seduction\u201d).<\/p>\n

Cattrall stars as Davina, a former actress and model who now works in an art gallery. She and her husband Al (McKellar) sell their middle-class suburban home and move to a glassy condo in downtown Toronto to feel hip and relevant again.<\/p>\n

Both Al and Davina are growing older in a world that prizes youth and beauty, and they react to it in different ways. While Davina takes hormone replacement therapy and gets her hair done, Al becomes obsessed with a \u201ctickle in his throat\u201d that could be cancer.<\/p>\n

Cattrall, 57, has spoken out often about sexism and ageism in Hollywood. And as perpetually single, sex-crazed Samantha in \u201cSex and the City,\u201d she shattered stereotypes about middle-aged women, commitment and sex.<\/p>\n

The U.K.-born, B.C.-raised actress said ageism is an interesting topic to her because \u201cit\u2019s my life, on an everyday basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just my life, but it\u2019s every woman\u2019s life,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019m not saying it doesn\u2019t happen for men, but I\u2019m a woman and I\u2019m experiencing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said actresses over 35 often have more to offer as performers than 25-year-olds, but as their commercial viability fades with age, so do worthwhile roles in television and film. Of course, she notes she was lucky to experience massive success in her 40s with \u201cSex and the City.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying that I haven\u2019t had a successful career in that arena, but as you grow as an actor, you want to continue to challenge yourself and play different kinds of characters, but you don\u2019t always get the chance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe role can be a scene. Everyone says, \u2018Oh, yeah, you\u2019ve got great scenes with this wonderful actor.\u2019 I say, \u2018Yeah, but the character doesn\u2019t do anything.\u2019 What am I getting out of it? I\u2019m not learning anything. I\u2019m sitting in a trailer. I don\u2019t think so. I\u2019d rather go do a play and have a great role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very fortunate to make those choices and to have those choices. So why not use it to explore something that I\u2019m experiencing? And if I\u2019m experiencing it and other women are too, then that\u2019s the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cattrall met with the writer of the BBC series, Hugo Blick, and originally tried to get the show made on HBO in the U.S. But when it languished in development for four years, she briefly tried making it a feature film before turning to her friend McKellar in 2011.<\/p>\n

Once the two were committed to making the show, they partnered with Toronto-based Rhombus Media and signed comedian Bob Martin to write the series. Two years later, they were filming in Toronto.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a dream. I kept pinching myself. It was really nerve-racking because I had waited so long, and I thought, \u2018Oh my God, we\u2019re finally here. I don\u2019t want to screw this up.\u2019 But Don was an amazing collaborator. I really loved working with him as an actress and as a co-executive producer. We had an amazing cast. Everybody we sent it to said yes,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was just great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the show\u2019s premiere Sunday, all six half-hour episodes will be available on digital platforms\u2014including TMN Go, HBO Canada OnDemand, Telus Optik on the go and the Shaw Go Movie Central app and Bell TV app. The series will continue to air weekly on HBO Canada.<\/p>\n

Cattrall said she would never try to emulate Lumley, the wickedly funny British actress of \u201cAbsolutely Fabulous\u201d fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t do what Joanna does. Nobody can,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s extraordinary. I\u2019m a big fan of hers. But she does what she does, and I do what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Davina is going through midlife experiences that are very familiar to Cattrall, many aspects of her life are totally different\u2014Cattrall hasn\u2019t had a 30-year relationship and has never been a mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019m most proud of in the series, as far as my work as an actor, is the relationship between Al and Davina. I totally believe that they had been married for 30 years. I felt if people would buy that then they would really go on this journey,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first six episodes it is a journey of this relationship, and in many ways a love story. We like love stories about young nubiles getting together, but (in \u201cSensitive Skin\u201d) we see two people of a certain age, in their 50s, approaching 60, going through a lot of painful things that to my knowledge … haven\u2019t really been explored this fully.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show is both filmed and set in Toronto, with plenty of familiar shots of the CN Tower, construction cranes and streetcars\u2014even jokes about rich downtown condo-dwellers clogging up the transit system.<\/p>\n

Cattrall said that she had originally planned to set the show in the U.S., but once she partnered with McKellar it only made sense to move it to the Big Smoke.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have such an association with New York because of \u2018Sex and the City.\u2019 I thought it would be really interesting to just break away and make it Canadian,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd nobody knows Toronto better than Don and Bob. They grew up there, they went to university there, they\u2019ve known each other so long.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that was sort of natural. We could cast all Canadians and have a fantastic crew, which we did. So it all seemed there was no downside to it. It was just an absolute pleasure to come home and work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014The first show Kim Cattrall ever binge-watched was the BBC\u2019s \u201cSensitive Skin.\u201d Cattrall was performing on stage in London at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":19277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hollywood","mauthors-laura-kane","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}