If ever you find yourself at a loose end in a conversation with someone you barely know, pivoting to which Sex And The City character they most identify with is usually a good way to swerve an awkward silence – even more than 20 years after the original show aired.

Sarah Jessica Parker recently shared her take on the debate during a video interview with W, and her answer was a little more nuanced than simply “oh, I’m such a Carrie”.

“I would say, probably like many women, I’m probably a combination of Carrie, in terms of some of her interests, and certainly the way she feels about New York City, and in a far less fevered way, her affection for shoes and fashion,” she began.

“But Carrie’s is heightened and otherworldly.”

However, SJP added that “as a wife and mother, there are times that I appreciate the things that Charlotte says, even though she says them in an often sometimes hysterical – literally hysterical – [way]”, and there are also “things about Miranda that I really appreciate”.

“So I think a bit of each,” she concluded. “But I think there’s a kind of sentimentality about Carrie that can muddy the waters even for me.”

During a recent interview with HuffPost UK to promote the new season of Sex And The City revival And Just Like That, Sarah Jessica also laid out the many differences between herself and the character she won her first acting Emmy for portraying.

“I’ve been with my husband for 33 years, we have three kids,” she began. “I live a pretty quiet life, I didn’t go to clubs, I didn’t have a very colourful single life, I didn’t date that much.”

She continued: “I don’t go out a lot, I don’t go to lunch a lot, I’ve pursued my career very differently, I think I have a very different relationship with money than Carrie.

“I could go on and on and on – which is what makes it so thrilling to have sort of played [Carrie, and] had this alternate life for so long, you know?”