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With all respect to Che Diaz, there is a different new character from the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That whom viewers are loving these days: Lisa Todd Wexley, a mom friend of Charlotte’s who loves statement jewelry, voluminous sleeves, and modern art. She’s played by Nicole Ari Parker, who called the Big Apple home for over a decade and was thrilled to return for filming. “I love the city so much,” Parker says. “I'm an East Coast girl—I don't even know what I'm doing in L.A.! Shooting in the city was a dream come true. I just had so much fun.”
Ahead of the season finale, Parker chatted with Condé Nast Traveler about adventures in the homelands of her husband, actor Boris Kodjoe, as well as how they’re raising their two children to be great travelers—and the importance of really crisp hotel sheets
What it was like filming And Just Like That in New York:
The show has 23 years of fans, so they were everywhere that we were when we were shooting outside. I really loved my character's interiors [in the Woolworth Building]. The art department and the production designers really did a wonderful job in creating my character’s home life. Kristin Davis and I shot a scene outside of a building that was supposed to be our kids’ private school, but it was right by Central Park, which was lovely. It was just a wonderful fall day at the park.
On raising her kids to be travelers:
My husband and I, we're raising two global citizens. We travel everywhere. My husband is German and Ghanaian, so we go to Ghana, to Germany. We go to Paris, to South Africa, to Texas. We go to Central America, South America, the West Indies, Northern California. We've eaten every food, we get our kids to eat every food. We try to learn at least the formalities in every language in every country we go in. One of the greatest things is that my kids aren't afraid of new cultures, new foods, new smells, new ways of being. We were on safari, and we were in a real lodge. The monkeys and the cheetahs were at the window, and my kids were fascinated! They weren't afraid. We've stayed in places where we've had to sleep on the floor. It's one of my greatest joys as a parent, knowing that I've shown my children the rest of the world to the best of my ability.
Her packing style vs. her husband’s approach:
I'm a forgetter. So, I take out a piece of paper and I'm like, "phone, phone charger, vitamins," so I can take my vitamin C, and D, and zinc every day. I have to write everything, because I'll get to the airport and freak out that I finally invested in a good sunscreen that's 50 SPF and I've left it on the bathroom sink. I write everything, and then probably an hour before the car comes, to my husband's chagrin, I assemble all the things in a pile next to the suitcase. In May, we'll be married 17 years. He organizes like his German mother taught him. Every single thing is folded to the size of a napkin, and it's never over weight. I could put the whole same amount of clothes, shoes, and products, and I would be 50 pounds over. I don't know how he does it! But that's our routine every single trip. Luckily, my kids inherited his way.
How the pandemic has changed her approach to travel:
I'd never been scared on a plane before, [but now] I've been conditioned to feel germs everywhere. I've become that person who wipes everything down, and wipes my kids’ seats off, even though they're full-on teenagers. Everybody has to wash their hands. I can just feel the amount of people that are around. It's really sad! Because on planes, people talk and laugh, and now everybody's fighting and screaming—and [are] germophobes.
How she spends her flight time:
I'm not a digital person at all. Everyone opens their laptops, and they've found out how to get the Wi-Fi working. I put all that away. I watch a movie or a series, maybe that I haven't seen before, or in a different language. I really love airplane [shows]—they're more diverse and inclusive now. But I sleep. I sleep like a baby. [I think it’s] the hum of the plane, and I'm usually on red-eyes. I just have the best sleep of my life.
Her tips for solid plane sleep:
I always need some kind of pillow situation, so sometimes I make my puffer coat into a pillow. If I'm in a fancy business- or first-class, they provide blankets that I turn into a pillow. But I can make it work. I'm definitely a window-seat person, because I need something to lean against.
How her love of travel was cemented as a teenager:
I have to really credit my parents because they encouraged me to travel. My neighbors, when I was a kid, were from an island called Montserrat, which was a thriving island in the West Indies near Antigua. The volcano really shut it down for a while; it's back now. I used to go there almost every summer with my neighbors. Then I was an exchange student. My mom encouraged me to apply to a sister city program in Baltimore. I lived with a family in Spain. This family showed me flamenco dancing, like real flamenco dancing. I was able to take my daughter back this summer.
How her husband’s background helped her see incredible new places:
My giant, gorgeous, everybody thinks he's African-American husband is actually African-German, Ghanaian-German. He’s from one of the sweetest small towns in the world, Gundelfingen. His grandmother survived the war. We got married in the house that his grandmother lived in. He’s from the Black Forest. He took me there in the winter, and I thought I was inside of a postcard, a children's storybook. The huge trees with the snow, the Bavarian houses—they looked like the Smurfs lived there. The smoke literally circled out of the chimney. The flower boxes were in the window. There were horses and cows in the pasture nearby.
There's that. Then when we went to Ghana, where his father's from, that for me was such a profound full circle in terms of ancestry, identity, history, where we're from as African-Americans. That whole West Africa coast line, where the majority of the slave trade was for centuries—the history of that is still intact, in dungeons where they held people captive. They were occupied by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the French. I mean, it's just hundreds of years of occupancy and enslaving people. However, the culture of the people is also still intact. The food, the music, the art, the science, the democracy, the global awareness. Ghana is a hub of culture and arts and science and joy, and everyone there speaks multiple languages. The Ashanti, Twi, Ga—it's just amazing to see the history, and to see culture prevail. It really changed my life. We've been back many times.
What she cares about in a hotel:
Oh, I love cleanliness. I love good sheets, and a nice bathroom. I don't even get mad if it's the [room with] the courtyard view, like the tennis courts. I don't need it to always look at the beach, but I need the bed to feel crisp and clean and soft. I need the bathroom to have good soap and good towels.
The place she and her husband are yearning to go next:
We have never been to Greece, and we have never been to Bali. Both of them are opening and closing, because of COVID, like every three months. Like right when he had a break from his show, Station 19, and I had a break from something I was doing, we said, "Let's go!" Then it was closed. My husband technically is a diplomat; he has a diplomatic passport from Ghana. The only people who are allowed are diplomats doing business, so we're trying to figure out what business plan he could possibly present at customs in Bali. They’d be like, "Uh, sir. You and your wife and kids need to turn around and go back to L.A., because lying on the beach is not a business."