What you need to know
Sarah Jessica Parker is sharing an update on her work on a sequel to the 2005 holiday comedy The Family Stone.
“I’m so excited…but it’s a pretty bittersweet predicament considering we lost Diane Keaton,” Parker, 60, told Variety at the Golden Eve Gala in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 6, ahead of the Golden Globe Awards ceremony on Jan. 11 (Parker won the Globe’s 2026 Carol Burnett Award for her contributions to television at the event).
“But it was a very special group of actors, and there were discussions with everyone before Diane passed away, so I hope we can do that,” she added of a possible Family Stone sequel. “The most difficult thing is everyone’s schedule.”
In “The Family Stone,” Keaton, who died on October 11 at the age of 79, played Sybil, the matriarch of a family whose holiday season is in turmoil when her son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) brings his girlfriend Meredith (Parker) to spend the holidays with his family. On top of that, Sybil is diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, adding to the tension in the house during the holidays. The film also featured Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams, Elizabeth Reaser, and Craig T. Nelson in the ensemble cast.
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Thomas Bezucha, the film’s writer and director, said in a November interview with CNN that he had already begun work on a sequel to The Family Stone before Keaton’s death. (According to the death certificate, the Oscar-winning actress died of a bacterial pneumonia infection.)
“While working on this piece, I have been haunted by the loss of Sybil for many months, so this was already a light bruise,” Bezucha, 61, told the magazine. “Mentally, I’m spending some more time in that house where I missed her so much.”
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Bezucha told the outlet that he had been toying with the idea of a sequel for some time, but was only interested in making the film if the rest of the original cast returned. “I’m not interested in a Brady family reunion without the original Jean,” he said at the time.
Parker recently reflected on co-starring in the film with Keaton on CNN’s “My First Christmas Without Diane,” which aired in December. “She loved to ask very personal questions,” Parker said of Keaton in the special, recalling that Keaton would ask people about “everything from money to really interesting and provocative topics.”
“I think it’s simply because[Keaton]was so interested in people. She liked knowing weird facts about people. I think what made people individuals was probably very interesting to her,” she added.
