Sex & The City was famous for two things: hilariously honest depictions of how women spoke frankly with their friends about sex… and sex. Being on premium cable, the show really pushed boundaries with its sex scenes. And as it turns out, star Kristin Davis wasn’t entirely comfortable with all the intimate scenes she and her co-stars were tasked with filming in the earliest days of the show.
Of course, the 59-year-old actress is famous and beloved for her role as Charlotte York on the HBO hit’s entire run, starting way back in 1998. And while the onscreen Charlotte was often incredibly prudish — to a hysterical degree — the real-life Kristin was ALSO very much trying to figure out how to navigate intimacy on camera!
Related: Kristin Davis Loaned A ‘Very Successful’ Actor $5,000 — And He GHOSTED Her!
Speaking to People on Thursday about her earliest experiences on the hit show, Kristin began by confessing how she was “confused” over whether the amount of intimate scenes called for in the show’s script were really necessary at all! A very Charlotte thing to admit to, right?
For one, she noted how way back then, she assumed female viewers would be “uncomfortable” watching so much sex on screen — especially since the show was VERY much targeted at them, and not at men! She explained:
“I don’t know how the men would feel watching ’cause I’m not a man. But it would be more for the male gaze than for the female gaze. A female gaze — they don’t wanna see that.”
Beyond that, Kristin admitted to being “scared” of having to portray sex on TV in those earliest days. In fact, the issue made her so uncomfortable and unprotected that she’d stay hidden in her dressing room for hours right after doing scenes:
“I did not feel protected. I had to hide in my dressing room at the end of the scenario. I had to hide in my dressing room and call my manager in L.A, at two in the morning.”
Whoa!
As Davis acknowledged, though, the show’s other stars could stick up for themselves a little bit more than she could — even in those early days.
She specifically called out Kim Cattrall as being one who could “definitely protect herself” — not to mention the most game to do basically anything. Man, she was fearless on that show! Furthermore, Carrie Bradshaw was the “most protected” on set (perhaps in no small part to her top-billed status!) while also being the “most uncomfortable” with having to film on-camera nude scenes, according to Kristin. That also tracks.
As for Cynthia Nixon? Kristin revealed:
“Cynthia doesn’t care about anything. Like, I remember one thing she filmed with [actor David] Eigenberg, and I was like, ‘Why is he grabbing her breast like that? Why didn’t someone tell him to do it?’ I was like, ‘Tell him to do it more nicely,’ and she was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ I was like, ‘Who was protecting you there?’ She’s like, ‘No one.'”
Damn…
At the very beginning of their time together, Davis says that the whole cast was still feeling out how to navigate the show and its adult-themed script. Remember, there was nothing on TV like this at the time! Sex was implied or at most talked about in the vaguest terms. No show had been able to just show it!
As such, they collectively “didn’t exactly know what we were doing in terms of the sexuality.” Nor did they know how it would be portrayed and filmed! She recalled:
“All of that was kind of vague. I also feel like we didn’t talk about it as a group in a way that would’ve been helping and would’ve happened now. Like, if there’d been intimacy coordinators and all that stuff. There would’ve been much more discussion now, but there wasn’t then.”
But over time, SATC‘s sex scenes “became much more our gaze, as it should be,” the Are You A Charlotte? podcast host explained. And in turn, she settled into a true level of comfort with what was being asked of her on camera. So that’s good!!
But you can definitely see how an intimacy coordinator would have helped that happen right away!
People also quoted Cynthia in their story on Davis’ sex scene memories, and guess what? The real-life Kristin was JUST like the on-screen Charlotte in one key way! Cynthia revealed that Kristin was always “super prepared and super on it” when on set to film her scenes, and added:
“She took a character that I think initially was very in danger of being two dimensional, and she fleshed it out with so much feeling and so much interior life.”
OMG!! That is SO like Charlotte to be perfectly prepared for anything and everything at all times. Overprepared, some might say! High-strung, you might even float out there! Sorry, Charlotte. Just saying! LOLz!
Got any sex scene reveal reactions, tho, y’all? Share ’em (below)…
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