Sarah Jessica Parker recalls 'stressful' and 'problematic' issues filming Sex and the City
SJP fought to change something in the early days of the iconic series
It’s hard to imagine a time before Sex and the City left its Manolo Blahnik footprints on the culture.
It spawned two massively successful movies and a sequel series. The quotes live on to this day. And the characters aren’t just well-known, they’ve become cultural archetypes - 'She’s such a Carrie, you’re such a Samantha'.
But when the show was in its infancy, they would take risks and swings that weren’t to everyone’s liking - and Sarah Jessica Parker actually found filming the show "problematic", urging bosses to stop having Carrie talk directly to the camera.
Fans of the series will recall that, in the early episodes, Carrie - played by SJP - would sometimes break the fourth wall and address viewers directly, something that we’ve seen replicated in the likes of BBC’s Fleabag.
However, they quickly dropped this, focusing more on Carrie’s now iconic voiceovers to move the story along. And, as revealed by Kristin Davis and SJP on Kristin’s Sex and the City themed podcast, Are You a Charlotte?, this was something SJP really fought for.
"[It was] very hard for me," she said. "And I think in particular the talking to the camera for me felt really problematic because I think, as I said at the time, it’s extremely hard to do well."
"My argument at the time was, 'I think it’s hurting what you’re really trying to do'", Parker recalled, "And I don’t think I’m doing it well, which is also problematic, and it’s not gonna be good. I think it’s gonna hurt the show."
Kristin, who played Charlotte in the show and subsequent sequel, And Just Like That, praised SJP for how she used her "power" while remaining kind during these exchanges.
"You were so calm, but you were very clear in a way that I hadn’t really seen other actors do at that point".
While the fourth-wall-breaking quickly became a thing of the past, it turns out, Sarah Jessica never really got to see the full effect she had on the show - because she didn’t watch it.
On a previous appearance on Call Her Daddy, SJP made the surprising revelation that she might be one of the last people on earth to watch the series - despite being its star and producer.
She told host Alex Cooper, "I've never seen most of it. I’ve never watched the show". She said she watched it "in the beginning" but quickly stopped.
"I realised that I wasn't being helpful because it was so unpleasant for me to watch myself that I couldn't see the work, and that's not a good producing partner."
There was one notable exception, though, and it helped Sarah Jessica realise just what impact the show had on the world.
She shared, "I saw the final episode ever because Michael [Patrick King] had a screening of it as it was happening live”. She added, it was the “only time” that she understood the cultural impact of the series.
