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Kim Cattrall on her TV show, Sensitive Skin: Why I’m breaking the taboo about menopause

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Kim Cattrall Sensitive Skin. Series 1 screengrab

Kim Cattrall in Sensitive Skin: she is becoming something of a poster girl for the menopause

It’s ten years since Sex and the City ended, and despite all her theatre work since, Kim Cattrall has been indelibly etched in our minds as man-hungry, sex-crazy Samantha Jones. Finally that’s changing, and from being the poster girl for sexually empowered and demanding women, she’s becoming the poster girl for women at menopause.  

In Sensitive Skin, a black comedy, she plays Davina Jackson, an ex-actress and model having a mid-life crisis. She lives in a chic Toronto loft apartment, has a hypochondriac husband and a needy son, is facing up to ageing, and has started talking to herself.

Kim both stars in and executive produces it, and the first series starts on Sky TV on Wednesday, 1 April. It has already been shown on Canadian TV and filming for the second series starts soon.

On Woman’s Hour this week, she talked about the time in a woman’s life that it addresses and the questions we ask ourselves.

She says: “It’s the point when a woman has achieved a lot of the goals society set for her – been educated, had a career, got married, had children – and now what?

“[She’s asking herself] what were the roads I did not travel? What am I going to do with myself?

“The man who in my 20s I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, is that still the man? And your children are off doing their own thing…

“I wanted to very much examine and give voice to this kind of woman, who’s at a crossroads in her life and trying to decide who she is now. She’s shedding these roles that have been put upon her, and she’s fulfilled. But now what? What’s the next chapter?”

Why 50 is different for women than men

Sensitive Skin is written and created by Hugo Blick, the man behind The Honourable Woman, and several men have been involved in the writing and producing of it. Can they really understand all of the above?

“Well, in the entertainment world, I’ve seen more scenarios of men struggling with a mid-life crisis than I have with women,” said Kim. “It’s usually manifested in younger woman and a sports car – those are the clichés.

“But for women it’s much more a physical change. It’s almost the opposite to our teenage years, where you’re gearing up; now things are slowing down.

When the menopause hits us

Kim talks about hot flushes as being “a big moment in your life” and recalls her first one, mid-rehearsal at the Donmar, as like being dumped in a vat of boiling water. She called her mother to talk about it and was told, “Oh I can’t remember, I just got on with it”.

That’s what most of our mums’ generation did. Thankfully today there’s more information available about what happens during this stage of life. Nevertheless, many, probably most, of us don’t seek this out until it affects us, and can be unprepared when it begins.

It can take a while to realise that things that are happening to us physically and emotionally could be down to changing hormones; that somehow, pre-menopause has crept up on us.

Kim says: “At the beginning of Sensitive Skin my character, Davina, is not even completely aware of what’s going on. The physical manifestations are right there and immediate, but the emotional and psychological part of menopause are not really explored.”

How do I want the rest of my life to be?

For Kim herself, there was a positive effect: “I found myself feeling a call to action. I’m lucky to be in the position that I can find these things that are going on in my real life and explore them.

“It can be scary, as change is frightening. Things have been the same for so long and now things are different. It starts gradually; it’s not just one big thing that happens.

“I wanted to give voice to this time, and use comedy, in the way that Sex and the City did with sexual taboos. I wanted to name it and to explore it and to make it user friendly.”

In an earlier interview on Canadian TV, Kim has said: “After Sex and the City everyone expected me to do another Sex and the City but I took time out, which was sort of meditative, and I thought: How do I want the rest of my life to be?

“And I didn’t want it to be safe. I wanted it to be challenging and to take chances.

“I always feel vulnerable. That’s why Sensitive Skin is so important for me at this point in my life. I’ve been fortunate to look a certain way and as you get older that starts to fade.

“And here is a woman [asking], Am I still desirable? Do I still look beautiful? Do I still have a place in life that is meaningful? Will my life be fulfilling? That’s really the biggest question.”

Listen to the full interview on Woman’s Hour (Kim’s interview is the first 12 minutes)

Sensitive Skin starts on starts 1 April at 10pm on Sky Arts

Or watch the first season of Sensitive Skin online

Kim talks on Canadian TV about Sensitive Skin

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