You're a nonswearer?
I use the S-word.

Shit?
Yes. In fact, I hesitate to tell you, but I think when I was stunned to hear I had won the Golden Globe, the first words out of my mouth--strangely enough for someone who doesn't use foul language--may have been, "Oh, shit."

I was so shocked, and I could not believe what had happened. I just lost all sense and then said that. It's just so odd, because I don't tend to use unladylike language.

You came into the show with a rule that you wouldn't do any nudity. Are you going to loosen that this season?
No, I've never done nudity in my whole career. I certainly don't think now is the time to start. I don't think it's necessary for anything I've done, although I have absolutely no opinions against anyone who feels comfortable doing it.

You've said you don't relate to the women in Sex and the City. Why is that?
When I was single, my life was very different. It wasn't nearly as colorful, and it certainly wasn't as busy. I think my character [Carrie] has had a long career of dating. I didn't have that. I was in relationships for a long time, and that was it.

Your single life wasn't colorful? What about dating JFK Jr., Nicolas Cage and Robert Downey Jr.?
I guess it was from the outside, but I think when I was dating any of those people, it wasn't public, really. I've never been someone who attends a lot of parties, goes to a lot of premieres--an extrovert of sorts. So, although they were public people, there are obviously different degrees of being public people, some by choice and some by birth.

They were more quiet relationships than they might appear. I think with any of those men I had the great pleasure of keeping company with, their desire also was for everything in their private life to be private, and I respected that.

Is that why you and Matthew had a secret wedding ceremony?
Yeah, we really didn't want it to be about strangers. We both come from pretty large families and we wanted our wedding to be for them. It just didn't feel appropriate to invite a photographer or any press to something that meant so much to us.

Do you think you would have been swamped by media and paparazzi if they had known?
Well, they did find out. It was a pretty raucous weekend prior to our wedding. Matthew and I had to move out of our house. We had to spend the night at a friend's house.

There were people calling two days prior. They were trailing Matthew's friends--his friends who are civilians, not actors or people in the business at all. My family was reached by phone 48 hours prior to the wedding. And I got many, many phone calls from people with British accents telling me congratulations.

There were people looking through our garbage. When we went to dinner, Matthew met me and said, "There are people in our garbage." So, it was out. There had been speculation. We don't flatter ourselves that we're that interesting; it must have been a slow news week.

Are you anxious to have children?
Not specifically, but I'm not uninterested, either. We just have to figure out a time when both of us are at home at the same time.

Do you try to stagger work assignments? Is that even possible?
We do, theoretically. We try to do that. But when an opportunity comes along that's very compelling, it's awfully hard to say no just because that's the idea you have in your mind. I try to be around, and I'm often able to go visit Matthew on his sets, and he comes to visit me. It's not a guarantee, but we do try.

Doing the series wouldn't prevent you from getting pregnant, would it?
Well, certainly there's no law that prevents it. But I recognize it wouldn't be great if my character were pregnant. And also, it's a fairly arduous and demanding schedule for me, so it wouldn't be terribly desirable for me to be pregnant while doing this filming.

But I don't rule anything out; there's never a "right" time. It's not in our immediate plans, so we'll just see what happens.

You smoke on the show; do you smoke in real life?
I am not smoking now. I smoke fake cigarettes on the show. They're called Honey Rose--they have no nicotine. They smell funny. They're made of lettuce or something.

How long has it been since you quit smoking cigarettes?
A few months.

Is it Nicorette time?
That's what Matthew used! He loved it. He was afraid he was going to get addicted to the gum. It's hard. I chew gum all the time. This year, I'm chewing gum on the show constantly. I forget to take it out.

Is it part of the plot?
I'm just a gum chewer anyway. But, yes it is, it's part of the plot.

You just renovated a town house.
We moved in about a year ago, so it's been great.

So, you want to stay on the East Coast?
Oh, yes. We'll never leave. We come to Los Angeles a lot for work, and my two best girlfriends live out there, but our families are here and the theater is here--so I think we'll always live here.

Do you and Matthew have any plans to work together?
Nothing imminent, no. Not anything I can think of. But I always hope I'll get to work with him again, because he's really good.

What's he doing now?
He's in a new play on Broadway called Taller than a Dwarf.

Are you happy or sad Sex and the City shoots 18 episodes, as opposed to 22?
It makes me very happy. Working for HBO is very unusual in many good ways, and one of them is that there are no advertisers to answer to. Every year we have a conversation between me and the two executives who cover our show, and we just decide how many we're going to do. It's a mutual decision we make, and it's as many as we feel we can do well.

I like to think of the show as this little event that happens every year, and the minute we get past 18 episodes, it seems terrifying and undoable. [That's] mostly because we film on location in the city of New York, and it's 16 hours a day, and it's just a lot of work. We want to do it really, really well, not in a mediocre fashion. It's six months of hard labor--but it's not manual, so it's all right. I love my job.