For over 40 years the HFPA has recorded famous and celebrated actresses, actors and filmmakers. The world’s largest collection of its kind – over 10,000  items – is now in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Margaret Herrick Library.

Born in Liverpool, England, and raised between Canada, London and New York Kim Cattrall won a GoldenGlobe in 2003 for her work in Sex and the City and was nominated again in 2000, 2001 and 2004. In this excerpt from 2002, Cattrall, then married to filmmaker Mark Levinson,  reflects on love, marriage and being Samantha – or not.

“ I’m very happily married but it did take a long time to get there because I think like alot of other women I was not willing to compromise. I don’t think that these women are willing to compromise either which is why I love the characters and I love the actresses playing them.

“I think there’s a time in your life where you say, ‘Oh, my God, I forgot to have a kid.Oh, my God, I forgot to get married. I forgot to have alife thatI’m supposed to lead’ andI think in the way that Mary TylerMoore influenced me as a young actress we’re influencing women and actresses out there to say,you know,maybe I’m not going to find it.Maybe that’s not going to be whatI end up having.

“I’m lucky enough to have found it soI’m notSamantha. I’ve gone beyond.I was very lucky andI thank my lucky stars but I know what it’s like to be in that desperate circumstance. I feel for her.I feel her pain and her desperation daily on the set and I thank God I’m not there anymore.

“(Sex and the City) a very big hit in England and it’s on regular television, right?Everybody can see it. But it’s stirred up a lot ofcontroversy because it’s startlingto hear women talking sex so frankly.”