Sex and the City: The Gossip, the Glamour, the Truth!
THE GOSSIP
It was said you were the holdout on making the movie. Why?
Kim Cattrall (Samantha Jones): Four years ago I was going through a painful public divorce, the series was coming to an end, and my father was diagnosed with dementia. I felt it was time to be with my real family. A year-and-a-half ago, when I was sent the script, I was ready and strong enough to revisit Samantha. In some ways, I'm glad we waited. The script and the experience of making the movie was the best possible reunion.
What about reports of feuds and contract disputes?
Darren Star: I think you have to draw the line between what's happening in gossip columns and what's happening on a set. You can't create that kind of chemistry. When you do a series for so many years, you can't fake it completely.
Chris Albrecht: When you're keeping people for years, you have to continue to pay them more money. Sarah was becoming more and more famous, and her salary increased beyond what was contractually committed, which is normal for hit shows. The other actresses wanted to keep up.
Mario Cantone (Anthony Marantino): Certain people were vilified in some articles, and others were vilified in other articles. It's interesting how they never write stuff like that about the men on The Sopranos. They always go after the women. They just do.
BETWEEN THE SHEETS
Michael Patrick King: The first episode I wrote had the scene where they're all deciding whether Charlotte should let this guy go up her butt. She says, "I don't want to be Mrs. Up-the-Butt." When I was writing that dialogue, it was exciting because I knew no one had ever written this before. No one had ever tried to be funny in that area, literally and figuratively. At the table-read, the first time everybody started saying it, Sarah Jessica and Kristin got beet-red and started giggling.
Sarah Jessica Parker: I almost never got over it. But it's okay at table-reads, because you can have your head down. My hair was always down for table-reads.
Kim Cattrall: Samantha's sexual appetite has been likened to that of gay men, but I never felt that. I love gay men, but I'm not a gay man. I think she was unique in the way she led her life. She had no guilt and no judgment. That is almost unheard of in America.
Darren Star: These were women who were objectifying men. And it was sort of jarring. Men aren't used to hearing themselves depersonalized and referred to as Mr. This or Mr. That. I think if you had a show with that sort of locker-room talk from a bunch of guys talking about women, it would be a little "yuck."
Kim Cattrall: The only time I ever asked for a rewrite was when Samantha was hired by a young girl for her bat mitzvah. Originally, there was a scene where they were comparing fellatio techniques, and I said, "There's no possible way that a woman, unless she's mentally ill, could have this conversation with a 13-year-old girl."
Jason Lewis: One of the first sex scenes we did was a montage of us having mad-crazy sex. They had one of those 99-different-sexual-positions manuals in the prop department, so me, Michael Patrick King, and Kim looked to see what would be good. Mostly I deferred to the lady.
Kristin Davis: One time [when Charlotte dropped her robe in front of Trey], I mistakenly showed my nipples. But it was a hard scene to shoot, and I had enjoyed that take so much, I said okay. HBO sent me a copy to approve.
Cynthia Nixon: Most of my sex scenes were comic — the dirty talker, the marathon man, the guy who wants to kiss my ass and wants me to do the same to him.
Blair Underwood: The first sex scene we had, I was on the bottom, Cynthia's on top, and she's doing the whole "ride 'em cowboy" type thing. In fact, they were playing rodeo music.
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