SM Prime Holdings brought in a very special guest to grace the opening of their newest mall, SM Aura Premier in Bonifacio Global City: Hollywood actress Sarah Jessica Parker, the star of the hit TV show Sex and the City. In a press conference on May 16, she shared her thoughts about being in Manila.

“I was very honored, very thrilled, very flattered,” she answered when Cosmopolitan’s editorial director Myrza Sison asked about how she felt when she was invited to visit Manila to be the event’s special guest.

“I love it. I’ve never been here before, and I hope very much that this is the first of many visits that I get to make. I really, really enjoyed my time here… I love the food, the people, and everything.”

She also said that she likes what she’s seen of Manila so far.

“I’m always attracted to cities. I always see the virtue in a city,” she said. “For me, what my eyes see… the jeepneys… all that, kind of like shopping with the eye… I love seeing people of different sizes and shapes and colors and backgrounds, looking at different architecture… There’s just so much to see.”

Being one of Hollywood’s top fashion icons, Sarah Jessica was also asked a lot of style-related queries, and she revealed a few things she has learned from playing Sex and the City’s iconic fashionista, Carrie Bradshaw, for several years.

“I always thought Carrie was much more bold that I was, and I continue to be less bold, but I think I’ve learned from her, playing her part for so long, that there is something kind of exciting about breaking rules, that there is an idea about… one color not mixing with another one, or mixing up patterns, or all the things and conventional ideas, what is right and wrong about dressing, she says, ‘I’m gonna throw all these ideas to the wind.’ She’s so wild, she makes bolder choices than I do, and I learned a lot from her.”

In the end, though, she shared that she would rather go for a mix of comfort and style.

“Probably, like most women in this room, I like to wear things that are comfortable, that I like to feel confident in,” she said. “One cannot leave the house trying to please every single person every day. That’s simply unrealistic and it’s not a very healthy way to live your life.”

(In-article and flashbox photos by Mike Dee)