Kim Cattrall: Sexual revolutionary

Kim Cattrall plays the predatory blonde Samantha in the TV show Sex and the City. Her father thinks it makes her look like a 'slut', but this British-born actress, veteran of such movie misses as Police Academy, has become an icon for single women everywhere. So why, then, did she choose to write a sex manual with her husband?

Kim Cattrall doesn't want her photo taken. "That might make her sound like a prima donna," says the PR nervously, "but she really isn't. And she's happy to talk about anything, but she won't talk about her father. Have you got a press pack?" A plastic envelope is shoved into my hands. I'm then led into an overheated room, where Kim is sitting, with another PR. I assume the latter is just about to leave, but she stays firmly rooted in her seat. Oh joy.

It's somehow fitting that Cattrall should be surrounded by such a posse, because, of course, Samantha Jones – the character she plays in Sex and the City – is a public-relations supremo. She makes her money by smoothing out rough edges, by showing things in their best possible light. And yet, ironically, audiences love her because this fortysomething blonde also tells it like it is, especially when it comes to sex. Which is precisely what Cattrall's father, Dennis, objects to. As he told the British press last year, he thinks the mega-successful HBO show about four New York singletons makes his daughter look like a "slut".

It's all so confusing. When it comes to ladies who lust, does Sex and the City take us forwards, backwards or in circles? It's the done thing to say that Samantha represents a new kind of woman, but surely Mae West and Jean Harlow got there first, draggin' the crowds in with a mixture of wit and filth, till the strictures of the puritanical Hayes Code began to chafe. Since then, we've had the glorious Shelley Winters chasing toy-boys in Alfie, and Madonna chasing everything in Desperately Seeking Susan. Meanwhile, Ab Fab's Patsy and This Life's Anna prove that on TV, women who get the most men are virtually guaranteed to get the last laugh. Such characters and their fans don't think "slut" is a dirty word. Dirty, if anything, has become the new clean.

Cultural revolution or not, it almost passed Cattrall by. Born in Liverpool, and brought up in Vancouver, Canada, this veteran of crass'n'cheerful movies such as Porky's and Police Academy turned down the role in Sex and the City several times. Initially, it was because she was engaged to the actor Daniel Benzali. During her second marriage, to a German architect, she'd put off having children to concentrate on work. As she explained in 1997, she was going to reverse the trend: "Getting married and having a baby right now are more important to me than having my own sitcom." As it turned out, she and Benzali split up; and Cattrall, now a three-time Emmy nominee, has been elevated to celebrity status.

She's seemed more than willing to cash in on such fame (she's loyal to sponsors, and once did live TV interviews holding a Nikon digital camera, to the assembled journalists' dismay). But if Cattrall is not averse to money, she has her own agenda, too. Last year, she wrote a bestselling book with her husband of four years, Mark Levinson, called Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm. In the forward, she talked about how her mother had experienced little in the way of sexual fulfilment. Cattrall's dad may think she's a slut but she, clearly, has him pegged as a lousy lay. Whatever else, this dame ain't scared of a fight.

In the flesh, Cattrall looks like a melting pot of famous blondes – Sharon Stone, Glenn Headley, Kathleen Turner or Theresa Russell – though, like so many blondes, she was born a brunette. She's salon-beautiful, her hair so shiny and feathered it creates a soft-focus halo around her head.

Her voice is soft-focus, too. "Hi, Charlotte," she says, with the biggest of smiles. Then, doing a double-take: "Oh... Charlotte [this is the name of one of the friends in Sex and the City – the real drip], I expect you get that a lot, being called Charlotte and having dark hair..." It occurs to me to point out that not everyone in Britain watches Sex and the City, but such brutality dies on my lips. Charlotte's not my favourite character, I say lamely. "Ah," purrs Cattrall, "Charlotte's sweet." As said by Samantha, this might sound like an acid put-down. As said by Cattrall, it just sounds, well, sugary.

Those desperate for news of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha will be glad to know that the sixth series of Sex and the City starts shooting in February ("It'll be here in a minute!"). The fifth is airing in the States and will screen on Channel 4 after Christmas. Trying to take in what she's wearing (Samantha's famous for her wardrobe), I ask Cattrall if she has a favourite Samantha moment this time.

She turns her green-grey eyes – huge and moist and possibly the only distinctive thing about her – in my direction. "Well, yes, I do. In the fifth series, we deal with a baby [Miranda's first born, Brady]. And it's interesting to see how Samantha, who's not particularly fond of children, deals with it. In some ways, I kind of found it difficult, because I did not have any children. I love babies, but having not had children, when I'm around children it's challenging [raucous laugh]. I've had girlfriends, and they have one or two kids and suddenly we don't see each other as much. There is this feeling when you don't have kids and your friends do that you're going to be left alone..."

She pauses, perhaps confused (like me) by the way the conversation has moved from Samantha to her. I'm also thinking: brown trouser suit. Mustn't forget. She's wearing a brown trouser suit.

Cattrall, who was 46 in August, thinks she may be too old to have children now, but is not one to mope. She says she's happy with her life and looking forward to starring in a Mamet play, Boston Marriage, at New York's Public Theatre this November. "It's a great time for me, professionally and personally. It's a prosperous time. Everyone thinks you should experiment as a teenager, but your life goes on after being a teenager."

She gives a little shiver. "I thought my forties were going to be scary. I came into my forties single, and all of my girlfriends were married and having families. I was the one who was being fixed up on dates. And that's one of the reasons I turned down doing the series. Candace Bushnell's book is so tragic and desperate. I was living that and I didn't know if I wanted to be involved in a series that was talking about that."

Now, she has Mark, 10 years older than her, a self-styled audio equipment whizz with a twentysomething daughter. She mentions the book she and Mark made together, and I swear I see the PR flinch. Cattrall says people "just didn't get the idea. They saw it as some airy-fairy thing that should come with a new-age music cassette – some book saying sex is about massages and nice smelling candles." Either that, or they thought it was going to be "pornographic".

In fact, says Cattrall, all she wanted to pass on was the information she wished she and her mother had had. Cattrall's mum, Shane, divorced Dennis years ago, and she and Cattrall have always been close (there were reports, recently, that the pair were going to visit a holiday camp in Prestatyn, Wales, where Shane worked in the Sixties).

That forward, I say – did her mother mind being "outed" as someone who'd had little or no sexual fulfilment?

Cattrall pops a boiled sweet into her mouth. "I read her the forward after I wrote it, and rewrote it [big laugh] and rewrote it. I've only written short stories before, never a book, and I was feeling vulnerable. I've always been so career-minded. Like my mother, I had cut off a certain part of my life as far as sexual fulfilment was concerned, because it had never been part of my life. As for my mum... I think because of the subject matter, and not being involved in the process, it was a little more frightening. Anyway, when I read her the forward, all of her fears went away."

So has Satisfaction inspired her to lead a new life? Cattrall makes a face. "Well, my mom, she's my mom. She's of a different generation and you can't expect... [her voice wobbles] that much change. She's been alone for a long time. I think she's settled in where she is. But she understands the book. She thinks it's a light in the world." Big intake of breath. "That's what she said."

Cattrall notes that when she looks at her great-grandmother's life, and her grandmother's, she sees how many more choices women have today. "I remember when the Pill came out. My mom, who came from the slums of Liverpool, she knew enough to say to me, 'Look, I want you to have a lot of choices in your life, so if you want to go that step further, whatever it is, I want you to be safe.'" Another deep breath. "I look back at that – this was in the Seventies. My mother was not burning her bra, not carrying a banner, but in her own way she set something going in my head, about me having the chance to explore my life before bringing other life into the world."

We're back to the issue of children, but Cattrall has already moved on. "She wasn't Catholic, so that probably explains something, but even so, coming from that generation, it's really something. She was such a great role model for me. And although in some ways it has not been what she thought it was going to be... um, it has been a very full, wonderful life. And I'm... I'm really..." Cattrall's eyes are wet. Her hand, meanwhile, is fluttering on her chest. She's so choked up she can't speak.

"Look," says the PR, "can we stop this? Can we put it back to Sex and the City?" Cattrall laughs: "I'm sorry, my mum's just about to come, so I'm really excited." She looks like a little kid. The PR less so.

I decide to ask Cattrall what she thinks of Mae West, and it turns out she planned, for a while, to do a mini-series about her. West, I say, had a great relationship with her mother. "Oh really," says Cattrall, eagerly. "I didn't know that."

Another heroine is Madeline Kahn, the kooky-cute actress who died in 1999. "I loved her in Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and Paper Moon." Cattrall claps her hands at the thought of this last one. "She was just so incredibly delicious. I had an amazing compliment at a dinner party. I ran into this gentleman, who had been her companion for a long time." Her brow furrows: "Sorry, I don't remember his name, but he was really lovely. Anyway, he came up to me and said, 'I just wanted you to know...'" Cattrall's eyes are wet and, once again, her hand flutters to her chest. "'...you made her laugh.'" Sharp intake of breath: "I was like... My God, that was an award in itself."

It's hard not to be touched by Cattrall's ability to be touched. But I feel the urge to open a window and let in some air. Tennessee Williams, eat your heart out; I fancy I can see baskets of orchids panting from the Southern heat, and their petals fainting, exhausted, to the floor. Samantha Jones has multiple orgasms. Cattrall has emotional floods.

She says what she loves about Sex and the City (especially in the last three seasons) is that all the characters are flawed, because "all women can relate to that. The underbelly of being successful and fabulous is to be scared." A head pops round the door. "One last question," says the PR sternly.

So. Flaws and fears, I say, where do she and Samantha stand on the plastic surgery issue? I get a frown in reply. "I think that's every woman's decision." Then a smile. "First of all, I think Samantha would go to the best person out there! She's not stupid, and she certainly has the contacts!"

It occurs to me that one of the things that makes Cattrall's eyes so fetching is the shadows beneath them – her eyes look lived in. I say I can't imagine her having surgery. She shakes her head. "I think it's great, if that's what you want to do. There's a woman in New York called Jocelyn Wildenstein [famous for having tons of work done on her face]. She looks like a cat, but she likes the way she looks and that's her business. I don't have any judgement of it."

So she would consider it? "Maybe... I don't know." She looks at the PR. "A face-lift would be scary. But I mean, whatever empowers you." She points to her face. "I'm not there yet, but who can say? If someone had said 10 years ago that I'd have all this stuff going on, that I'd have written a book on sexual fulfilment, I'd have gone, 'What?!' I take nothing as a yes-or-no situation."

This seems a slightly odd comparison. The book was clearly a dream come true. Could the same be said of surgery?

"You know," says Cattrall, "we did an episode where Samantha has a face peel and it goes wrong. I don't want to ruin the plot..." Again, a look at the PR. "But the way she deals with it is so fabulous, so uniquely of that character and of the time. I don't want to spoil the twist..." "So don't," groans the PR. Cattrall is too excited to hear. "But basically, she doesn't go and hide."

This does sound stirring, but I still don't quite understand where Cattrall stands in the debate. "Look," she says, "I recently sat next to Sophia Loren. I wasn't looking to see whether this or that had been done. It was Sophia Loren! There was an essence... Lots of people look at older actresses and say, 'They don't look so good', but I don't even see that. I don't think we should concentrate on what people look like, or feel like, that's too surface for what's going on in my life. It's deeper than that for me."

But doesn't plastic surgery tamper with someone's "essence"? "No, because I don't think essence is what you look like."

Gadzooks. There's something positively Wildean about such logic. It's superficial to dislike plastic surgery; it's deep to just take it in your stride. I say she could run a great PR campaign for plastic surgery.

"Everything decays, whether you have it snipped or tucked or folded," she sighs. "We're [on this Earth] for a minute. Our legacy is what we leave behind." Which in Cattrall's case will not include a snapshot taken by an Independent photographer.

The PR signals it's time to go, and, turning to Cattrall, says: "Mummy's here!" I ask Cattrall if she and her mother did visit Prestatyn and she says no, because her mum got sick.

As I leave, I pass a handsome, wrinkled woman with short, sensible grey hair. She's holding a cup of tea, and says, "Hi!". I'm led away by another PR, and hear whoops of joy from inside the room. The girl explains that she and Cattrall's mum have been having a very nice chat. Apparently, Shane has sisters all over England; one, for example, in Bournemouth, and another in the Wirral.

Bournemouth and the Wirral: these are not very Samantha Jones words. What's not clear is to what extent Cattrall is a Samantha Jones girl. When she's in her seventies, I wonder who or what she'll look like. A skin-tight version of Sex and the City's triumphant slut, or her beloved mum?

Either way, I hope Cattrall's "essence" has fun. The suit, by the by, was Armani.

The third series of 'Sex and the City', on DVD, and the fourth series, on VHS, are both released on 18 November.