One of the more unexpected screen appearances so far this year comes in “The Ghost Writer,” when Kim Cattrall turns up in director Roman Polanski’s new film as an aide to a disgraced British prime minister. Cattrall had an extensive movie career before starring as Samantha in the “Sex and the City” series, but many of those roles were in light comedies like “Baby Geniuses” or “Mannequin.” To see her in a political thriller, speaking with a British accent and playing a woman whose sexuality is as covert as Samantha’s is overt, is initially shocking.

As it turns out, Cattrall was born in England (and raised in Canada), and is currently back in her birth country appearing on stage in a revival of Noel Coward’s play “Private Lives.” Cattrall said she has been following local politics, “reading about the tough times Gordon Brown is going through,” a reference to England’s current prime minister and the successor to Tony Blair, clearly a model for the politician character played by Pierce Brosnan in “The Ghost Writer.” Asked how British politics differs from the American version, Cattrall said, “the Brits are more used to shenanigans.”

Cattrall said she isn’t a political junkie (”I don’t have the time for that”) but allowed that she follow the news, including the U.S. health care debate and the way “socialist” has become a dirty word in some circles. “I grew up in Canada, which is basically a socialist country,” Cattrall said. “That word socialism has gotten a bad rap. It’s akin to commie, or close to it.”

In “The Ghost Writer,” much is made of the fact that Brosnan’s character was an actor before becoming a politician. Cattrall was asked if she saw parallels between the two professions. “I think there is a representational part of both of those jobs and a public fascination with both of those jobs,” she said. “It’s difficult to be private in both of those jobs. I became an actor to act. I didn’t become an actor to be asked political questions.”

Source: here