"I look back on four years ago with a lot more clarity than when I was living four years ago," Cattrall told reporters in New York recently. "I look at what was going on in '04 … The show coming to an end, which was really devastating because it was the best job that ... a woman in her 40s could ever want. ... I was going through a divorce which was really, really hard. And it wasn't a divorce that was a private divorce because suddenly I was on a TV show. And it wasn't between lawyers and family members; it was in the New York Post. ... And then my dad was diagnosed with dementia. So, I look back on '04 as one of the worst years of my life."

Cattrall said that while she was taking a "time out," the "Sex and the City" fan base expanded greatly and when the producers contacted her again 18 months ago about doing a movie she was more receptive to the idea.

"It really felt like full circle," she said.