The stars and creators of the hit series share their juiciest memories and reflect on the show’s legacy.
Originally published in 2010:
Hold on to your Manolos.
We spoke to the stars and creators behindSex and the Cityfor an oral history of the iconic series.
Credit: HBO
The show debuted June 6, 1998, to a modest 3.7 million viewers.
But that audience like the characters' wardrobes and list of exes grew fast.
Candace Bushnell, creator
I never envisioned it for the screen.
‘Sex and the City’.
Darren Star, series creator
I was never seriously considering going to a data pipe.
I really wanted to do a comedy about sex from a female point of view.
I wanted to do an R-rated comedy.
Kristin Davis, Kim Cattrall, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Cynthia Nixon in ‘Sex and the City’.HBO
I don’t think anybody would be interested in this particular story now.
When Candace was writing those columns, the city was completely different politically, socially, economically.
But there was a wonderful recklessness.
Cynthia Nixon (Miranda)
I grew up in New York during the ’70s.
Do you take the subway?"
To them, it was like Attica.Sex and the Citywas the final cherry on the sundae of New York.
Dangerous or dirty or rude?
Oh, no, no, no.
The entire country was suddenly forced to talk about bl jobs.
That forced the country to be more open about acknowledging sex.
It’s like an episode ofSATC.
It was like, This is different.
That was a different take on police work, and this was a different take on sexual politics.
She [said], “Let’s hang out and get to know each other.”
We had 18-hour days, so we bonded pretty quickly.
The most famous person on the set, you take their lead.
I read for the py guy, always talking dirty about py or something like that.
Couldn’t you have got something different?"
I remember having to fake an orgasm in their office once.
And a garbage truck went by, and the guy hung off and said, “Hey, Carrie!
You’re my girlfriend!”
Jason Lewis (Smith)
I was nervous as hell the first day I showed up.
I was supposed to be objectified by 30 to 40 women that was my first scene.
It was like a kid going to his first day at a new school.
Like, where do I sit?
And then Kristin Davis came by and swooped me up.
The environment in general was pretty great.
in the worst possible way, it’s that one.
It was just kind of the superarchetypal moment for the women: their points of view, their response.
I just loved that.
King
I think that was the first episode I wrote.
Typing it out, I was like, No one has ever written this before.
For better or for worse, no one has ever written this before.
Nixon
[“My Motherboard, My Self” was] so great on so many levels.
But also Samantha I mean, I thought that was brilliant.
We were so excited to talk about supportive shoes and a supportive bra.
But that episode was so long, and we were going to have to cut a scene.
And we didn’t want to lose either.
Then Michael finally decided: She doesn’t have her computer, so she can’t write her question.
Originally we had her handwriting the question.
And the poor hair people were like, “Noooo!”
Because it was like, Screw it!
I thought to myself, Samantha wouldn’t just take it off.
She would use it as a kind of strip, some revealing of the truth.
I loved that story line.
[Casting him] was my idea.
We kept saying, “Who’s bigger than Big?”
I mean, who’s bigger than Baryshnikov?
And we started this courtship.
He said yes eventually.
It was great because then he became Aleksandr the Great.
Big and Great, two combatants.
It ended the show in a way I’m really proud of.
What happened to the funny?
I don’t want to do this.
This is hard."
It was poignant to me.
I loved doing it.
), and even copycat shows (Lipstick Jungle,Cashmere Mafia).
And when the first film came out, that’s all we heard about.
Michael called it the Super Bowl for women.
I think that’s really an incredible legacy.
For once, women had this real institution that celebrated them that they could celebrate together.
They could feel fabulous no matter what their marital status was.
I see [the show’s legacy] in funny ways.
Every purse commercial, toothpaste commercial, diet commercial is four girls.
I get a lot of fan mail about the cancer episode.
Always, in literature, if a woman goes that far out, she has to fall.
And I felt, Oh, this is payback for all of the excess.
But the way Michael wrote it was the antithesis of that.
I thank Michael for that.
Willie Garson (Stanford)
What’s important for people to remember aboutSATCis it’s about love.
It’s always been about love.
That’s the emotion behind the whole piece.
It’s a very nice feeling, but it wasn’t anything so self-conscious.
There wasDynasty,Dallas.
I think Britney Spears is responsible for that.
We did a lot to get rid of panty hose.
And God bless, because other than a cold day, why would anyone want to wear panty hose?
They’re really ugly.
They’re not the color of your legs.
I feel like that’s a nice thing.
And I think people enjoyed seeing that.
I kind of think that’s a shame.
I’d rather have it as the New York ofMidnight Cowboy.
But what am I going to do?
I sound like an old fart, I guess.
Vary, and Kate Ward
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