Sarah Jessica Parkerand herSex and the Citycharacter, Carrie Bradshaw, are now synonymous. But it almost wasn’t that way. Parker was recently reunited with herAnd Just Like Thatco-star,Kristin Davis, to talk about the HBO series that bonded them for life. Davis, who plays Charlotte in bothSex and the Cityas well asAnd Just Like That, had Parker on her podcast,Are You a Charlotte?and Parker shared that there was a point in her life whenshe tried to get her agents to get her outof playing Carrie Bradshaw.
Parker recalled filming the pilot episode. She told Davis that while everyone was “lovely,” she realized that it wasn’t necessarily something she thought she wanted to do. Evena “well-known producer” stopped herandcomplimented her on the showbut she’d put it out of her mind. “She said to me, ‘Oh my gosh, I saw your show.’ I said, ‘What show?’” Even with the producer saying it was “really good,” Parker revealed that shestill wasn’t convinced.“And when the show was picked up, I panicked,” she said. “I was like, I can’t be on a TV show.I don’t think I’m suited for that life.”
“It’s very hard to explain. It also kind of depressed me,” she said. “I think that it was the idea of doing the same thing over and over and over again. And I think I’d always been lucky that I got to be in a television series, and then it was over. I met great people, had a great experience, worked with great actors, great directors, thought the stories were interesting, wanted to do the shows, and they had shorter lives,maybe one or two seasons.And then I moved on.” Parker went on to saythatSex and the Citygetting picked upmeant that she “couldn’t do all those things” and it made her not want to do the show.
Carrie Bradshaw’s Wardrobe Won Sarah Jessica Parker Over
After worrying about getting stuck in something likeSex and the City, Parker revealed that she told her agents to try to get her out by offering to do other things for HBO. At the time, the network was an “unknown species.” BothSex and the CityandThe Sopranosput the network on the map in the late ’90s but prior to that, no one really knew what to expect from HBO. When Parker couldn’t get out of the show right away,her agents convinced her to give the show a chance. “Do it for a year, and if you don’t want to do it anymore, we won’t do it,” Parker says her agents told her. But thenshe met with costume designerPatricia Field.
Part of the allure ofSex and the Citycomes from Carrie’s fashion choicesand that’s what Parker said got her excited about the series. “It went from being this oppressive idea to endless possibilities.” Parker shared that from there, she went to her first day of filming and the rest was history. “AndI never looked back. AndI was never not happy to be there,” she said. “There was no place I would rather have been than on our set every single solitary day.”
you may see Parker bring Carrie Bradshaw to life in theSex and the Cityspin-off seriesAnd Just Like That.
And Just Like That…
The series follows Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s.
(viaAre You a Charlotte?podcast)
