SARAH Jessica Parker wants you to know she is not Carrie Bradshaw.

The confusion between the actress and the sex columnist she famously plays is apparent from the questions fired at her while promoting the Sex And The City (SATC) movie: What advice does she have for women? What about daters? Any sex tips?

'I look like her, I talk like her. But her life is very different from mine' Parker on her character, Carrie Bradshaw

Each question - but especially the discussion of sex - leaves her visibly mortified. 'I don't have relationship advice. I don't give them. I'm not equipped to,' she pleads, a tiny hand clutching the sparkly vintage choker she wears over her green Dolce & Gabbana dress, the distress making her seem even more diminutive than she already is.

She isn't trying to be difficult, Parker hastens to add when she sees the crestfallen look on some reporters: 'But I just don't want to... inflate myself. I'm not a relationship expert. I have no business telling people how to find meaning in their lives.'

Her business, of course, is always showbusiness, which Parker, 43, has pursued since she was eight.

There was the hard-scrabble childhood, moving to New York with her family when she was young and poor. She played little orphan Annie on Broadway, graduated to a long string of pleasant comedies such as Honeymoon In Vegas (1992) and LA Story (1991).

But it was her award-winning turn as Carrie Bradshaw that elevated her to the A-list and made her producer, style icon and Manhattan celebrity.

She is also a shrewd businesswoman with a clothing line, a production company and lucrative endorsement deals on several continents.

Recognising the burgeoning audience for the SATC franchise, it was Parker who picked up the phone to start putting the movie together. And it is her perseverance that spawned the movie that will extend the legend of Carrie.

So it's ironic that, unlike Carrie, Parker is uncomfortable discussing the first of the two nouns in that famously blunt title.

On talk shows, she comes across as funny, articulate and hardly prudish, but she steers clear of anything salty.

She has a no-nudity clause. Hers is a chaste modesty that might have prompted Maxim, the ribald lads' magazine, to vote her (a tad unkindly) as the 'unsexiest woman'.

Parker is happier talking about the city. 'I love the city of New York and try to be a friend to it like Carrie is,' she says.

To her credit, she is a beloved fixture of the West Village neighbourhood where she lives with her husband, actor Matthew Broderick, and their five-year-old son, James, always friendly with the local merchants, photographed often stylishly running her errands.

Since the series ended, she has picked complex, almost-unlikable parts in movies such as The Family Stone (2005) and Smart People (2008) - perhaps an attempt to step out of Carrie's shadow.

Not surprisingly, she's still trying to put some distance between herself and Carrie.

'I look like her, I talk like her, and we have the same skeleton. But her whole life is very different from mine, and we've made very different choices,' she says carefully, when asked how she feels about her alter ego.

'I love her. But I don't feel like her.'