February 3, 2025 • 42 mins
The heart and soul of Sex and the City becomes clear in Bay of Married Pigs.
The incomparable Michael Patrick King joins Kristin with revelations about the show's beginnings that carry through to today.
Plus, Michael Patrick King and Kristin reveal intimate details from their own personal experiences that are also central to Sex and the City and being a Charlotte.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are
you a Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You guys, you guys, we have not a Fader kid,
that's correctse I'm so.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Excited we're in my house.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's a little bit different today because I had Michael,
so it's super super special.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
It is special to be here. I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
We are thrilled to have you because I love you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Is that why? Yes? It is because I love you.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You know, It's true.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I took the kids to school this morning and I
had a good cry just thinking about you being here.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I could cry right now, I know, because.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I love you and you're amazing, and it's hard to
even I was trying to think about how I was
going to take us back to the beginning but also
encapsulate or some up or somehow explain to people like
what we have, which I mean on some level, the
joy of what we do is that they see what
we have. They may not know that that's what they're seeing,
(00:58):
but they see what we have. But because we're hearing,
we get to talk about it. We could actually talk
about what we have.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I think what they see is from the beginning episodes
to where we are now is how much I fell
in love with you as an actress that we just
kept growing her.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I mean, isn't that the truth? Because there's like nothing
in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I know, it's really interesting and I would like to
start this conversation by asking you, yes, are you a Charlotte? Yes?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
In so many ways, but I also think a part Carrie.
And since you know me so well, I wonder what
you think.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think that you were. And Charlotte was in the
beginning for me, the furthest away from my reference points
of how do you write this character? I didn't know
that I am not a Charlotte. We am not a Charlotte.
I maybe the Charlotte now don't created, but you have
(02:00):
created that. In the beginning, I was like, I don't
know how I'm going to write this character, this Charlotte.
I don't know what she is underneath?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Right right? Well, I think everyone must have felt that,
because there's like, you know, first of all, she's not
in the book that much, right, and she's like an
amalgam of people. Apparently we found out over the years.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
She may have been thinly sketched, right, but so deeply
important because she was holding tradition that we were destroying
every episode. Yes, so without Charlotte's rules and rigorous understanding
(02:41):
of what society wants women to be, we wouldn't have
had anything to sort of yeah yeah, yeah, so the
idea of how thinly sketched she was, but how vital
she was to the eventual thread of the four of
them that we kept weaving and getting stronger and stronger
and stronger. So when I first met you, I was like,
(03:02):
I don't know whether I thought you were Charlotte, whether
I didn't, I didn't know who you were.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I don't think I knew who I was.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Honestly, you know that is so honest true, because there's
a real metamorphosis.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I mean and inside as well.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Like when I'm looking back now, I'm just in like
some levels of shock. I'm like, I'm like an unformed puppy,
like flopping around the world.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I feel so worried.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
For me when I walt like me personally like Charlotte, yes,
but I know what happens to her, But like me
as Kristen, I'm like, how did I exist? Like I'm
so like barely covered DoD.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I mean I think that I do know what you mean,
and I would watch you in those early scenes and
you were heightenedly aware of everything around you, everything in
a way that you now I literally to use one
of your brands things. I could bring an elephant onto
(04:03):
the set while you weren't performing and acting and you
wouldn't even react to it. But at that point, if
a door opened somewhere right, you would feel it so deeply.
And I thought, what was so interesting the evolution of
you as an actor, just owning your belief in yourself. Yes,
(04:29):
is that it?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I think it must be, because when I look at
it myself, I mean, the thing that's weird and this,
you know, maybe too much information, but we're on my podcast,
so I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Going to do it.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
You know, I've been an acting class forever, right like forever.
At that point, when you're an acting class, you know,
it's extremes, right like they're kind of like priming you
to give it all. J're saying, it's very no one's
ever saying like do less, you know. I mean occasionally
Roy London, who was a really kind of like next
level acting teacher, he would say cover cover cover. I
(05:00):
obviously never mastered that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
No, I actually would not say there's anything in your
early performance that was not perfect for what was written.
But I think what changed was what was written. I
think that you were you hit it perfectly so that
it was a defining color. If we would say that
each of them are a color, definitely, you were definitely
(05:23):
the color that you needed to be. What I think
was so interesting was the trick of being comic. Ooh yeah,
it was so important.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So important, And I do forget that.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I do forget that part, right because like that part
in the beginning, especially before you came right the pilot,
Like I did tell the story about how I'm doing
the pilot and they're like, you know, bigger, funnier, and
I'm like, there's no jokes.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, Like that's why I'm there exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So when Michael came, let's get to you for a second.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Okay, So when you came.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, so Murphy Brown obviously huge, who choose you'd want award?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Your slotted and everything else.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And before that that was my first big TV thing.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Right, but before that stand up direct, I was a
stand up comic. And I mean that's like, to my mind,
the hardest.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It's hard especially because and this will relate to Charlotte.
You as Charlotte the first season. Stand up comedy is
incredibly aggressive if there's any part of yourself you're unsure
of or hiding. And for me, when I started stand up,
I was still in the closet spoiler alert.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Were you wearing the flood shirts and you had the curls.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I had the curls and the shirts. But the reality
is I was terrified on that stage somebody would see
what I was hiding. And I think, if I can
loop it back to you, you were terrified that first
season that someone would see what you were hiding, but
I don't know what it was. You'd have to tell me.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I think what I was hiding, And I don't even
know that I would have thought of it this way,
because obviously I was just like I mean, in side,
I feel like I was like thrilled but also terrified,
like on a high wire act. Sure, and that's kind
of what I see when I look at it, and
I have like super clear memories and then like none,
(07:12):
like everyone said, oh, you're only in one episode, the
first one. Seeing the first episode, I was like, really,
I don't remember that, But obviously because we crossboard too,
I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
You know, it's so funny because my experience of looking
at it again the early season is that you're perfect,
but the writing isn't there yet, but it is the
beginning of the archetype is.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, definitely the beginning, definitely.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
But anyway, so I did stand up. And one of
the reasons I was brought onto the show, Carolyn Strauss,
who was the HBO czar for our show, that was
the person who sort of said it sent me the
pilot and fantastic. What do you think? And I said,
I don't know what it is except for the last
moment Big says to carry completely, and the look on
(08:01):
Sarah Jessica's face like she'd been hit with a two
by four in the stomach, made me go, what is this?
So my mission statement, the reason I was brought in
was they said they would pick it up if I
joined to make it funny.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Well, thank god, Michael cave well.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Because the idea is there need to be jokes, and
for me, the idea of making comedy about sex being
an Irish Catholic kid who was so repressed, and then
on top of that, somebody who had been repressed in
the closet and the idea of all that just makes
really comic energy for me. And talking about sex was
(08:41):
really the reason we became a thing, not because of love,
which it eventually grew into, but it was about mister
pussy sharpey penis, but pushing, the pushing and stuff that
no one had up the butt. Of course, maybe the birth,
maybe the birth of the maybe the birth of Charlotte
(09:05):
that we brew into. Maybe is the birth of Charlotte?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Really mortifying to say it, but I know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So when we did the table read, I wrote that episode,
by the way, I'm proud to say brilliant in the cab.
I agree, I agree on that. But when we read
it at the table, the four of you were laughing
so hard, but embarrassed, laughing, red faced, laughing that no
one had ever said this sentence or this arena, and
(09:34):
it was that thrill of something that no one had
ever said. And my feeling about it is we were
just saying it a week before people were ready. Oh wow,
you know, Like, I don't think consciousness was so far
behind us, or else it would have been like, what's
that crazy show?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I thought we were right on the edge.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I said, we said things a week before people were
ready to hear them, which made it thrilling, but also
in the arena of acceptability for the audience practices and
standards and practices. Also, I also thought that we got
rid of the men a week before the audience got
fed up with them, which was important because they're gone.
(10:17):
That's too soon. Well, if it stayed one more week,
it would have been like bored. So I came on
to add jokes, and.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
What did you think?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Like, okay, so you came onto a jokes, thanks the
Lord character, and also like, I mean, what you really
added was depth, because for me, comedy is about having
high stakes, right, Like, if you just have jokes that
are surfaced, they aren't actually character.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's really the comedy comes out of this character being said,
well to use up the butt. He I want to
go up your butt. But it's not funny unless it's
Charlotte who's hearing it, of course, and then it goes
crazy and then the other ladies get to react and
Charlotte that said, what are we talking about? To Brown
or whatever? Smith? I went, where are we talking about it?
(11:02):
I went to Smith? But Brown would have been two
on the nose for that storyline. But so I got
there and Darren and I started, and I remember this specifically,
we both wrote. He wrote the pilot, then he wrote
Models and Mortals, and then I wrote Bay of Mary Pigs,
which is the next episode. And we handed each other
because we were equal partners, and we handed each other
(11:25):
the scripts and Darren handed me back by script and
every third line had a red circle around it through
the whole script, and I said, what is this And
he said, those seemed to be like they're holding this
scene back. I don't think you need them. And I
looked and I said, Darren, everything you circled as a joke.
It's just not the way of writing. It's just not
(11:48):
what Melrose Place was. And Darren's funny, but he wasn't
used to seeing the moment where you stop and do
a funny thought in the character. Yes, So I mean
that was the beginning of like, oh yeah, we're going
to keep infusing each other as And I mean he
had stuff that I never had, would never have had.
(12:08):
All that that dark money New York real estate part
of the show, that mister big Start's that wasn't in
me at first at all. I had my stuff totally.
So when you see Bay and Mary Pigs, it's the
beginning of me going well, this is what I would
do with these characters, right.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
And to me when you see I mean I watched
one O two and I almost like just crumbled to pieces,
like it is the most dark and bizarre thing in
the world and.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Accurately appropriate for what Kennice Buschelle started with, which is
this box. Her writing is so sharp, and I think
that book is like a box of broken glass. Yeah,
it's perfect, but it's not at all something you want comforting.
(13:02):
It's not comforting, No, it's it's dark, dark, absurd and
funny and treacherous. Yes, and that's where that's how she
saw the world. And then Darren was doing his version,
and then I thought, well we have to, I mean,
just to talk about Carrie, Carrie had to be more
(13:22):
rounded than a broken glass. Not going to watch Broken
Glass every week. You can enjoy it once, but not
every week for just nothing to do with the taste
or the talent involved. It's like, how do you make
something every week that's both sharp but soft, right, and.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
That people can relate to and want to be and
also have their different like, oh, I like what she said.
Oh I like what this one said. You know you
needed that. So when I watched Worms, first of all,
I don't even remember like that guy Gabriel Monk's character
film those women. Okay, I'm still like traumatized. Okay, I
need someone to explain, like when you came. So Carolyn
(14:07):
brings you, and she's like, we need to be funny,
thank god.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So we need to add a little more.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Funny definitely, and thank God and.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Other stuff that I bring. Carolyn didn't see me as
a stand up. I had written a pilot for HBO
that was about the beauty world, and so she saw
that there was more.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Than jokes, obviously, And I mean sometimes it doesn't even
matter if they see that, because that's what you bring anyway,
and luckily they let us bring it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah. But I was also coming from network television, right comedies,
So I was liberated to be in a free zone
where you could write stuff without editing yourself or having
a network edit you.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I really felt like, you know, like those really long
leashes that dogs don't even know they're on. Yeah, that's
what I.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Felt like, Oh, how great. So it was a great
experience you were.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
From the beginning, it was just how great run, Run, Run,
Run run.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
In your mind? Did you what did you see in
terms of like how it would go or how long
you would do it, or like what was your vision?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I just was having the great creative experience of learning
so much but also doing something so new that no
one even knew what it was. The first season was
just Darren and I in a room making each other laugh,
and like I remember once Darren had the flu really
(15:40):
bad and he was typing and it was it was
the episode with the flabby ass guy when Samantha dates
the old guy was ass doesn't exist, and I said
something and Darren left so hard that he snotted on
the keyboard as he was typing because he was sick.
So the first time I had an inkling was when
(16:04):
you know we did all twelve before, Yeah, I remember
it was the first time I had an inkling was
when they sent us the trailer they had cut together,
and I thought, this is going to be hilarious because
they cut all the spiky moments, the sex moments, which
(16:24):
was our calling card right right, And then something else
became are staying cards right?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Because that's the next question is like in your mind,
did you think like this is going to make a splash.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I wasn't thinking like that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You're just in it.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I was just I just felt like there was no end.
I just felt like, oh, we just keep going.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Saying goodness.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I just felt like, Oh, these characters, these actors, this world,
this is always going to be both painful in a
great way and funny because it's painful. But it never
felt to me like I ever had to reach for
(17:09):
the next thought. It was just like, oh, how do
we tell that story? And what's the story there? And
never I never thought I was completely in the moment
the whole time.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I mean, and when I do talk to writers and people,
they always say like wow, and I go, yeah, everybody
wants sex in the city, but they only want sex
in the city season four.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
They don't remember season one, right, they don't, and they
don't they don't remember that it grew.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It was one story and we had that, they gave
that it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Was one from each other. We kept discovering it. And
you know, in speaking of they of married pigs, my
I haven't seen those ever until I was given my
homework assignment are you as Charlotte. My story that I
told myself and other people about the first season was
(18:07):
I didn't even know what the show was to the finale,
which is O, come all, ye faithful, right, And then
when I looked at Bay and Mary Pigs, I was like,
I'm not going to say that again.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
It's so true because you knew the thesis.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yes, it's there, the.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Thesis of the entire series, the thesis. It's true, clear
as a bell, which is married people think single people
are lepers, right, which is what we built definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
But also then at the end, how she comes back
together with us, think about how many times over the
years we have filmed that scene.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, I know, it's amazing, amazing. And as far as
you saying, oh, I didn't know what I was doing,
and I'm me saying, oh I didn't know who Charlotte was,
she's pretty clear in that episode.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's true when you think about that, and thank god,
because I was, I was like, oh my god, is
the whole episode good? The whole first season going to
be me flailing? I knew that the episode you reverenced,
which I hate to even say it still forty years later,
thirty years later up the butt obviously is a very
specific set of memories of like joy of performing as
(19:16):
well as like humiliation.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
You know that is the joy definitely, Definitely they go together.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
They go together, especially for Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And what you grew to embrace as an actor, Yeah,
was the absolute joy of being in a moment that
could be considered embarrassing totally and just going with it.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
It's true. It's true.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, at some point one of you, either Darren or you,
I can't remember which, said you know you're going to
have to get the pie in the face.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Now, I know, if you talk.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
To each of us, each of us really feels like
we had to get the pie in the face.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And probably that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I always say it's going to be a queen pie. Yeah,
you know you're gonna get hit, You're gonna get hit.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And I mean that was really I remember going like, oh, okay,
that I need to embrace that. That is what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I think the reason the show was tolerable was because
the heroes were also the fools. Definitely the soap Every
as soon as somebody stood on a soapbox, which Charlotte did,
oh so often, we always broke the soapbox, right, so
she felt at the end you can't make a speech
on the show without getting a cream pie.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
It just was the real It was the It was
the balance of the strident.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right right right right, And I mean I think I
was the most strident. I mean, I guess Samantha in
her own way is also but she's also just you know,
she's powerful, whereas I'm like, I mean, I don't know
if I'm powerful or whatever, but I mean I remember
those power You're so sweet. I might be powerful now,
but only because you saw me. Like I have to
(20:52):
give you credit for this, Like if you had not
seen me, I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, well, if you hadn't been there, there wouldn't have
been no Charlotte. It's true. I mean, the reality of
this rose that just kept opening and opening and opening
and opening and opening and opening and opening. I was like, Wow,
this could just go on forever. And it did. But
you know, talk about the speaking of going on forever,
talking about the embarrassment, the journey that you took from
(21:21):
that first up the butt comedy horrified Kristen, Yes, to
all the way to Dingust like that, which was the
scene where you had to hold you're going to blow
Harry in the bathroom, and we had a prosthetic penis made,
and it would say.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
How beautiful it was.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Though, okay, it's very beautiful.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
It was a you know, I didn't I wanted to,
you know, make Harry do justice, do justice to the
the story that Harry and Charlotte have a great sex life.
But anyway, there was this beautiful penis where beautiful fakes
and we've never seen Charlotte actually touch it. We've hinted
through the many years of this that she's kind of
great and wild in bed, right, she has that side.
(22:08):
She's open and will we're married about you know what?
Thank God, Yes, But you're kneeling on the floor take
after take after take with this fake penis, totally embracing,
and then Kathy Yang, who plays Lily, is opening the
door at the wrong time and you're like, no, no, baby,
it has to be after I hold the penis, just
(22:32):
wait a couple of seconds till the penis is in
my hand. And I literally went into you afterwards and said,
you're my favorite ever. The attitude around kneeling on a
floor in front of your family, the crew gently telling Kathy,
a younger actor, that she can't open the door to
(22:52):
you have the fake penis in your hand with the
best attitude, and I think you said most fun day
ever at the end.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
It was fun. It was really fun.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
And that's the journey.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
That is the journey.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
And I think, like for me, and this is the
part where I mean, I kind of am like the
thing about are you a Charlotte? And let's pause for
a second and give Michael full credit. So we're working
in just like that, the idea of this podcast has
come to me.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
This is now like I.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Think the third or fourth I mean, people are continually
trying to get all this to do podcasts, which is
of course very flattering, but it wasn't the right time
and you know, really, you know, and I were going
to do one, and then we did the show instead,
and so then again this new idea came and I
was at work with Michael and I was like, Michael,
I just want to run this thing by you. You know,
we're thinking about this, and we're thinking about talking about
the themes, the themes of the show, and I think
(23:36):
I'm like two sentences in and Michael says, this is
how Michael works. He's like a pure creative. I'm two
sentences in I'm nervously telling him, thinking that he's not
going to prove and he says, I have a name,
and I'm like, oh, okay, what is it? You said?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Are you a Charlotte? And I was like, this is
the joy that you are? You know, He's just.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Firing on all cylinders at all times. I'm just talking
to them now. But wait, I want to said this
about Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
What I was going to say was part of me.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So like, if you think about Charlotte in the beginning,
even in her kind of unformed self, and I think
you know that. You know the weird thing about when
I was in the pilot and they tried to get
me to sign a different contract saying I was recurring, right,
do you understand that? Because I still don't.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
No, I wasn't there, right, Like, what.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The hell did anyone ever say that to you when
you came like we don't know what to do with her?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Okay, because I think I think a we were over budget,
which you know is kind of our mo Our brand.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Is our brand, you guys, It's definitely our brand.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Thank god it works.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Out exactly, thank you everybody on the screen exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So they give me this some line producer that I
never saw again comes to my trailer one day. You
know you've signed like the seven years of course contract.
She comes with this two page contract that says, you know,
I Kristin Davis and playing Charlotte. She's a recurring character
for five thousand dollars an episode. And I was like,
you laugh. I was like, no, I'm not close enough
(25:01):
to the girls at that point to talk to them, right.
I don't know what to do. Call my lawyer. I'm like,
what do I do?
Speaker 2 (25:05):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And he says, don't sign it. Don't sign it. And
I'm like, but they're going to come tomorrow and they're
going to ask because you know me in the room,
right And he's like, listen, just pretend that you forgot.
And I'm like okay. So the rest of the pilot,
I have to do this every day.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
They're like, did you bring the paperwork?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I'm such a dopey actress, blonde like the rest of them.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Anyway, I never sign it, right, And then we go
off and we have that very.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
You did the entire series pilot without signing that contract.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I'd signed the big fat seven years, but not the
recurring that would have made the first one null and
boy right because I wanted that Hell was that right?
That's my inner thing that now rough comes to live.
I know, But see this is what I see, what
I see the beginning of the show. You know what
I'm saying, Like, that's when I say I'm on a
tight wire. I have inside the knowledge that someone tried
(25:57):
to demote me. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, but luckily.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So everything has to be perfect.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Everything has to be perfect.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And also like my my my spot is unfulfilled, meaning
like not by me, but like they don't know what
it is. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I'm flashing to what the episode where Charlotte says to
Trey's mother the prenup, I'm worth a million.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, one of the best moment.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Remember that I'm worth a million.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I do remember that vividly.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The growth of Charlotte, and look at the growth of you.
Who wouldn't sign that contract rather than going in there
to them and saying I'm worth regular.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
To this totally I know, but this is the fear,
and I think back.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
On this, now, that's interesting that you would have carried
that sort of shakiness, that somebody behind the scenes didn't
think you belong as a regular.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Right, that that is the truth, I understand my experience.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And no one ever heard that.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
You didn't even know you guys, you didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I never even heard that or thought that that.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Was somebody as a secret.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Because once again, let's go back to the writing. You
didn't have anything in the pilot exactly. You would say, well,
what are we going to do with her? Maybe make
her reoccurring?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Right, And she's not over budget.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Happily blowing people, she's not the writer of it, and
she's not the uptight lawyer spunky one. Right, what are
we going to do with her? Make a reoccurring because
we don't know what the character is.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And when you read the Kansas's books, she's also not reoccurring, right,
I know.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So they really tried.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I know, so luckily, for whatever you know, magical reason,
I didn't do it. And you know, it's not like
I'm the most confident and even agree with you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I think I've everyone. I think you're one of the
most level headed, smart business people that I've met, you
know exactly what's what in all these negotiations as we've
gone through the years. Ye're the one who goes, Okay,
here's the reality. Now what's supposed to happen. Here's the reality.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Some people get so mad about that too.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
No, I think you're really smart. You're the one who
goes like, Okay, that will be nice, but here's what
is happening. And sometimes I'm wrong and also weighing the
reality of I want this or do I give.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Up totally because to me, the work, the work is
so special and so unique and amazing and once in
a lifetime I am fine giving stuff up. But I
wasn't fine being recurring no thank you. I shouldn't happen
exactly so, but I you knew I did. I had
a sense they far sense that they needed my voice.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
The fact that they don't know what to do with
me is the reason they need me.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
But that's such a scary place to be, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So like when I look at myself, and also I
do feel also just as a human being, Like when
I watched the three of them in the pilot, I
feel like they're powerful. Now, yes, it's the writing, but
I also feel like per formance wise, like you know,
even Cynthia is Miranda when she you know, remember she
pushes Sure, you know what I mean. Sure, I'm like,
oh god, I wish I was like that.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
But I'm more like, you're not like that at all.
That's your internal projection on that Orc. Okay, you're not.
You're I think, if anything, you're delicate, Okay, okay, which
is Charlotte. Yes, I guess you were a Charlotte even
before you knew that you were a Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I think that must be true.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
And I mean, you know, there is like this one
part of me that's not a Charlotte, right, which is
like the when you talk about the scene with the
prosthetic penis.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
That's the part of me where I'm like, yes, there.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
We I am more bohemian and open and whatever. You know,
I'm not married in life. You don't.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I'm going to tell you a story. Oh, I'll tell
you a story about how different you are than Charlotte. Yay.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I'm scared.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
At one point in one of the seasons, I think,
like season four, at the end on Hiatus, you're going
to go on a far yes, and you had a
person a boy to go with that then didn't happen.
And remember you because of this, you went on the
safari totally alone. And it was a high end, very fancy,
(30:17):
fancy couple driven, blissful, honeymoon esque moneyed safari where there
was nobody else, just you and this man who wound
up not going.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Oh that one, yes, and you shall not be named.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
He shall not fool. We'll call him asshole for this podcast,
will call him asshole number five, assuming there was four
others before him. But at least you went on the
safari alone, totally alone, and you told me a story
(30:56):
that the guides were carrying you around and setting you
up in these beautiful tents and things, and one of
the guides said to you at one point, are you
a princess? Because they did not understand the royal way
that you were treating yourself alone.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And that's when I thought she's so strong, she's such
a warrior that she did not need a man to
go with her. Charlotte would have never gone at that
point right now, might now, but at that point would
never have gone. And I thought that was such a
(31:39):
funny dichotomy between between what people think of you as
who you really are, that sort of warrior nature. I'm
an individual. I'll take my life anyway to make it
my life. And I thought that was a big difference
between you and the essence of Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's true, it's true. It's well. But it's funny because
the thing that they asked me many times before they
finally asked me if I was a princess was where
is your husband? Where is your husband? Then they say
where's your father? And I'd just be like, oh my god.
You know, I mean, obviously cultural differences, but still, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I went to Mexico once while we were doing the
show by myself and they kept saying, Senior, where's your wife?
Where's your wife? And they would play mariachi and they'd
get to my table and just go and just move
over to the next couple. Oh my god. That idea
of the humiliation of being single is really one of
(32:39):
the things that fueled my birthright into this series. Not
the fact that I was a woman, or not the
fact that I was a single lady, but the fact
that I was an outsider, which is what the in
the society, which is I was a gay man, who
couldn't get married at the time. So it's an interesting
(32:59):
thing that outsider this, the anarchy of that was really
the thing that I found so thrilling to write. All
the humiliation that happened so much.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And there's so much and ongoing.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That was the white people related to it. Yeah, I
think the audiences that were single related to the constant
humiliation and then the constant getting back up and going
on the safari alone or just going to the party
by yourself.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Right right, it's all giant never ends, man.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
It never ends. I know, it never ends.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
The weddings are the worst. The weddings are the worst,
which we say pigs or the best.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I guess pigs. The weddings. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
So amazing to think about how long. Right, So remember
she's on the street with the Stanford and they've run
into that guy.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Who He's like, she seen you since and he says
since I was?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I mean, And then they can't technically get married, but
they're all getting married with the Lays and Stanford makes
funny jokes. But I mean, it's insane to think about.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Well, that's also incredibly I think oddly I'm still ahead
of the curve. Yeah, Unfortunately society has not yet got
the message to stop treating people this way. I know
it's still and you know, we're dealing with it, and
just like that, we're dealing like, oh, you're fifty something,
(34:29):
you should be further along, and people are like, what, No,
we're humans. But when I saw Bay and Mary Pigs,
I was like, wow, it's comic. Yes, it's humiliating. And
the other thing that surprised me was how involved it
all was already. Yes, I mean Charlotte goes all the
way to China, picked China out with that guy. I
(34:52):
mean I was like, wow, we just kept going I
don't even remember him well.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
And also like, do you remember how Trey and I
go and pick China?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, eventually yes, But the idea the DNA is there.
I mean, the fact of the matter is what was
so thrilling for me to write. It is stuff that
you know, network sitcoms were twenty three minutes twenty three Yeah,
character goes out the window, you don't get that extra bump.
Samantha and the Irish doorman that is so meat, That
(35:23):
is so me. When he says I just been so
sad since I left home I'm longing for the touch
of a woman that that is and that actor.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Oh my god, buy Andy.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
We keep it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Nicole hall of Center. Nicole directed.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Can you believe she dressed so early?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah? I don't. I was no idea. Nicole halli Center
is amazing director, but one of her super super super superpowers.
And I have this too. I'm abashedly bragging. Is casting
you are you know you know what that is. But
Nicole with straight guys. Nicole cast those straight guys, that
guy married couple that carry has lunch. Yeah yeah, yeah,
(36:05):
so adorable.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
They're so good.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
And so when you see the writing and the performing,
I'm like, this is very sorry, I'm going to say it,
this is very high quality. The third episode in terms
of people, the jokes are there, and that pepper mill
Dick and which.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I remember that whole scene it went on to get
that pepper mill to at the right time. That was
like such a that was like a like a lab
of like us learning how to do a coffee shop
scene that we would do many many back then. We
didn't have enough time because we were like man, trying
(36:42):
to get it all in, but trying to get it
all orchestrated and all of us talking. Remember how you
were like talk past or, talk.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Pastor's that's good. And that wasn't even directed.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Because we had to get the you know, this is
why in the trailer at that point, we were all
in the trailer together, all running our line, so that
when we got out there, you didn't yell at us,
or nobody yelled at us, not just you know, we
had to be like just not just Michael, just because
we were tired too, you know what I mean. And
it was a lot, but like that dialogue, it was
it was a different That's the first time in terms
of the show where I'm watching back in the beginning
(37:17):
where I'm like, yes, that's the thing became the thing. Yes,
and that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
That's so hard as an actor to do.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
And when people come on as guest stars they're like,
oh my god, it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
But even Charlotte in that when she goes to the party,
she's dropping all the really specific this is a classic
six on the Upper West Side. No man would ever
have this unless he was he's going to ask you
to marry him. Yeah, and then he does, I mean,
and then she's like then she takes it to the
next level. And then the comedy is the China patterns.
It couldn't work, I.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Know, and for sure he picks a bad one. I'm like, yeah, no, no,
but she's picky.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
They all come together at the end and go to
a movie, and that that overview of the whole thing
about that terrible moods, the terrible cheesy, cheesy.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Can you believe how far we've come?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Oh, that's what I was you said.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You said the production values, and I was like, this
is what he was talking about.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
What about Charlotte's bedroom, I.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Had too flats. I couldn't believe I had a hallway, okay.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Because in the beginning I only had two flats, and
I don't know how they made that hallway come. But
also like I'm so sad, like it's another growth thing
of Charlotte. Like that kid, that guy talking about how
he just needed the touch of a woman in the
Irish accent.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
And I just make a face at him.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
It's so sad, Charlotte Dorman in your house. Well, that's true,
and that is what I guess what Charlotte wild think.
It is inappropriate and confusing.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
But he's just.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, he's dreaming, he's haunted. He has the sad irish haunted.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
So sad I love it.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
But it's just so, It's just that That's why I
was so happy there because the idea of her coming home,
You're Charlotte taking Samantha home, which is never good when
you do, by the way, it never goes well, never
goes well when she comes in from the actual environment.
I mean, she slept with your brother. That another episode,
which is, by the way, one of the big missteps
of the entire series. I wish that shouldn't happen.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
That was very confused.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Two things that I go, what's the other thing that
we talked about Carrie's father, Yes, episode that we actually
show a picture of book and I was like, this
is so we're on such thin ice. Let's get off
this right now.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
And even Charlotte's.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Wedding, we didn't even introduce the parents because I was
not interested.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, And let's just because people have asked me that
occasionally over the years, like why what was the thinking
that you wouldn't do backstory?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
You know what I'm saying, because when you moved to
New York, or my experience of moving to New York
at twenty, Whose parents do you meet?
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Good Point?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
You never do. I mean it's like you meet your friends,
you never meet their parents. I mean maybe you do.
And all of a sudden, what I became very aware
of is that you guys were becoming so vibrant that
to bring a parent in is never going to measure up.
It's going to be disappointing. Like who's Carrie's mother, Who's
(40:27):
Charlotte's mother, Barbara Perkins? Maybe maybe? But then what then
you're doing that story? And the only parents we brought
in was Miranda's mother who was killed never saw, and
we brought in the husband's mothers. They completely affected the
main characters good Point, Trey's mother affected Charlotte and Miranda's mother,
(40:51):
Steve's mother affected Miranda's story. But it was what are
we going to get from bringing in these people that
were sort of they all met like alchymyl alchemically in
New York. They didn't need any backstory to know each other.
I don't know. I don't think I ever met anybody
when I was in thirty in New York. Did I
(41:11):
meet anybody's parents. Not until they started getting married, right,
But when Charlotte got married. I was like, no, I
don't want to see the father. It's not their story, right,
It's the story of I jerked off, he jerked off,
and maybe he jerked off right before. It's that's the
story you and Carrie and just you actually only see
(41:32):
a shoulder. Remember ever your father was.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I remember that. I remember that.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
I think somebody's dancing with You're dancing with somebody's father.
Somebody's dancing with Carrie's dancing with somebody, somebody that's like
an uncle, or maybe maybe the groom's father. I forgot,
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
I don't know, but.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
It's always treacherous. That's what the show was to show
us about the friendships of the family you make.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Totally the family you make, this is important to make.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
And I learned the lesson when we were talking about
who's Steve's mother was. Every single writer in the room
had a different idea of who Steve's mother was. I
was like, oh, this is a nightmare, so I'm just
going to do mine.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
I love it and rightly so alcoholic, rightly character. Okay, Michael,
obviously you and I can talk forever.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
I hope everyone's enjoying it. We're going to make this
into two episodes.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Is that okay too? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Sure, at least so you can stay and talks more,
of course,
Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are
you a Charlotte.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You guys, you guys, we have not a Fader kid,
that's correctse I'm so.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Excited we're in my house.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
It's a little bit different today because I had Michael,
so it's super super special.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
It is special to be here. I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
We are thrilled to have you because I love you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Is that why? Yes? It is because I love you.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
You know, It's true.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I took the kids to school this morning and I
had a good cry just thinking about you being here.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I could cry right now, I know, because.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I love you and you're amazing, and it's hard to
even I was trying to think about how I was
going to take us back to the beginning but also
encapsulate or some up or somehow explain to people like
what we have, which I mean on some level, the
joy of what we do is that they see what
we have. They may not know that that's what they're seeing,
(00:58):
but they see what we have. But because we're hearing,
we get to talk about it. We could actually talk
about what we have.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I think what they see is from the beginning episodes
to where we are now is how much I fell
in love with you as an actress that we just
kept growing her.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I mean, isn't that the truth? Because there's like nothing
in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I know, it's really interesting and I would like to
start this conversation by asking you, yes, are you a Charlotte? Yes?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
In so many ways, but I also think a part Carrie.
And since you know me so well, I wonder what
you think.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think that you were. And Charlotte was in the
beginning for me, the furthest away from my reference points
of how do you write this character? I didn't know
that I am not a Charlotte. We am not a Charlotte.
I maybe the Charlotte now don't created, but you have
(02:00):
created that. In the beginning, I was like, I don't
know how I'm going to write this character, this Charlotte.
I don't know what she is underneath?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Right right? Well, I think everyone must have felt that,
because there's like, you know, first of all, she's not
in the book that much, right, and she's like an
amalgam of people. Apparently we found out over the years.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
She may have been thinly sketched, right, but so deeply
important because she was holding tradition that we were destroying
every episode. Yes, so without Charlotte's rules and rigorous understanding
(02:41):
of what society wants women to be, we wouldn't have
had anything to sort of yeah yeah, yeah, so the
idea of how thinly sketched she was, but how vital
she was to the eventual thread of the four of
them that we kept weaving and getting stronger and stronger
and stronger. So when I first met you, I was like,
(03:02):
I don't know whether I thought you were Charlotte, whether
I didn't, I didn't know who you were.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I don't think I knew who I was.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Honestly, you know that is so honest true, because there's
a real metamorphosis.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I mean and inside as well.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Like when I'm looking back now, I'm just in like
some levels of shock. I'm like, I'm like an unformed puppy,
like flopping around the world.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I feel so worried.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
For me when I walt like me personally like Charlotte, yes,
but I know what happens to her, But like me
as Kristen, I'm like, how did I exist? Like I'm
so like barely covered DoD.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I mean I think that I do know what you mean,
and I would watch you in those early scenes and
you were heightenedly aware of everything around you, everything in
a way that you now I literally to use one
of your brands things. I could bring an elephant onto
(04:03):
the set while you weren't performing and acting and you
wouldn't even react to it. But at that point, if
a door opened somewhere right, you would feel it so deeply.
And I thought, what was so interesting the evolution of
you as an actor, just owning your belief in yourself. Yes,
(04:29):
is that it?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I think it must be, because when I look at
it myself, I mean, the thing that's weird and this,
you know, maybe too much information, but we're on my podcast,
so I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Going to do it.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
You know, I've been an acting class forever, right like forever.
At that point, when you're an acting class, you know,
it's extremes, right like they're kind of like priming you
to give it all. J're saying, it's very no one's
ever saying like do less, you know. I mean occasionally
Roy London, who was a really kind of like next
level acting teacher, he would say cover cover cover. I
(05:00):
obviously never mastered that.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
No, I actually would not say there's anything in your
early performance that was not perfect for what was written.
But I think what changed was what was written. I
think that you were you hit it perfectly so that
it was a defining color. If we would say that
each of them are a color, definitely, you were definitely
(05:23):
the color that you needed to be. What I think
was so interesting was the trick of being comic. Ooh yeah,
it was so important.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So important, And I do forget that.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I do forget that part, right because like that part
in the beginning, especially before you came right the pilot,
Like I did tell the story about how I'm doing
the pilot and they're like, you know, bigger, funnier, and
I'm like, there's no jokes.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, Like that's why I'm there exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So when Michael came, let's get to you for a second.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Okay, So when you came.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, so Murphy Brown obviously huge, who choose you'd want award?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Your slotted and everything else.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And before that that was my first big TV thing.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Right, but before that stand up direct, I was a
stand up comic. And I mean that's like, to my mind,
the hardest.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It's hard especially because and this will relate to Charlotte.
You as Charlotte the first season. Stand up comedy is
incredibly aggressive if there's any part of yourself you're unsure
of or hiding. And for me, when I started stand up,
I was still in the closet spoiler alert.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Were you wearing the flood shirts and you had the curls.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I had the curls and the shirts. But the reality
is I was terrified on that stage somebody would see
what I was hiding. And I think, if I can
loop it back to you, you were terrified that first
season that someone would see what you were hiding, but
I don't know what it was. You'd have to tell me.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I think what I was hiding, And I don't even
know that I would have thought of it this way,
because obviously I was just like I mean, in side,
I feel like I was like thrilled but also terrified,
like on a high wire act. Sure, and that's kind
of what I see when I look at it, and
I have like super clear memories and then like none,
(07:12):
like everyone said, oh, you're only in one episode, the
first one. Seeing the first episode, I was like, really,
I don't remember that, But obviously because we crossboard too,
I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
You know, it's so funny because my experience of looking
at it again the early season is that you're perfect,
but the writing isn't there yet, but it is the
beginning of the archetype is.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, definitely the beginning, definitely.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
But anyway, so I did stand up. And one of
the reasons I was brought onto the show, Carolyn Strauss,
who was the HBO czar for our show, that was
the person who sort of said it sent me the
pilot and fantastic. What do you think? And I said,
I don't know what it is except for the last
moment Big says to carry completely, and the look on
(08:01):
Sarah Jessica's face like she'd been hit with a two
by four in the stomach, made me go, what is this?
So my mission statement, the reason I was brought in
was they said they would pick it up if I
joined to make it funny.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Well, thank god, Michael cave well.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Because the idea is there need to be jokes, and
for me, the idea of making comedy about sex being
an Irish Catholic kid who was so repressed, and then
on top of that, somebody who had been repressed in
the closet and the idea of all that just makes
really comic energy for me. And talking about sex was
(08:41):
really the reason we became a thing, not because of love,
which it eventually grew into, but it was about mister
pussy sharpey penis, but pushing, the pushing and stuff that
no one had up the butt. Of course, maybe the birth,
maybe the birth of the maybe the birth of Charlotte
(09:05):
that we brew into. Maybe is the birth of Charlotte?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Really mortifying to say it, but I know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So when we did the table read, I wrote that episode,
by the way, I'm proud to say brilliant in the cab.
I agree, I agree on that. But when we read
it at the table, the four of you were laughing
so hard, but embarrassed, laughing, red faced, laughing that no
one had ever said this sentence or this arena, and
(09:34):
it was that thrill of something that no one had
ever said. And my feeling about it is we were
just saying it a week before people were ready. Oh wow,
you know, Like, I don't think consciousness was so far
behind us, or else it would have been like, what's
that crazy show?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I thought we were right on the edge.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I said, we said things a week before people were
ready to hear them, which made it thrilling, but also
in the arena of acceptability for the audience practices and
standards and practices. Also, I also thought that we got
rid of the men a week before the audience got
fed up with them, which was important because they're gone.
(10:17):
That's too soon. Well, if it stayed one more week,
it would have been like bored. So I came on
to add jokes, and.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
What did you think?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Like, okay, so you came onto a jokes, thanks the
Lord character, and also like, I mean, what you really
added was depth, because for me, comedy is about having
high stakes, right, Like, if you just have jokes that
are surfaced, they aren't actually character.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's really the comedy comes out of this character being said,
well to use up the butt. He I want to
go up your butt. But it's not funny unless it's
Charlotte who's hearing it, of course, and then it goes
crazy and then the other ladies get to react and
Charlotte that said, what are we talking about? To Brown
or whatever? Smith? I went, where are we talking about it?
(11:02):
I went to Smith? But Brown would have been two
on the nose for that storyline. But so I got
there and Darren and I started, and I remember this specifically,
we both wrote. He wrote the pilot, then he wrote
Models and Mortals, and then I wrote Bay of Mary Pigs,
which is the next episode. And we handed each other
because we were equal partners, and we handed each other
(11:25):
the scripts and Darren handed me back by script and
every third line had a red circle around it through
the whole script, and I said, what is this And
he said, those seemed to be like they're holding this
scene back. I don't think you need them. And I
looked and I said, Darren, everything you circled as a joke.
It's just not the way of writing. It's just not
(11:48):
what Melrose Place was. And Darren's funny, but he wasn't
used to seeing the moment where you stop and do
a funny thought in the character. Yes, So I mean
that was the beginning of like, oh yeah, we're going
to keep infusing each other as And I mean he
had stuff that I never had, would never have had.
(12:08):
All that that dark money New York real estate part
of the show, that mister big Start's that wasn't in
me at first at all. I had my stuff totally.
So when you see Bay and Mary Pigs, it's the
beginning of me going well, this is what I would
do with these characters, right.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
And to me when you see I mean I watched
one O two and I almost like just crumbled to pieces,
like it is the most dark and bizarre thing in
the world and.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Accurately appropriate for what Kennice Buschelle started with, which is
this box. Her writing is so sharp, and I think
that book is like a box of broken glass. Yeah,
it's perfect, but it's not at all something you want comforting.
(13:02):
It's not comforting, No, it's it's dark, dark, absurd and
funny and treacherous. Yes, and that's where that's how she
saw the world. And then Darren was doing his version,
and then I thought, well we have to, I mean,
just to talk about Carrie, Carrie had to be more
(13:22):
rounded than a broken glass. Not going to watch Broken
Glass every week. You can enjoy it once, but not
every week for just nothing to do with the taste
or the talent involved. It's like, how do you make
something every week that's both sharp but soft, right, and.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
That people can relate to and want to be and
also have their different like, oh, I like what she said.
Oh I like what this one said. You know you
needed that. So when I watched Worms, first of all,
I don't even remember like that guy Gabriel Monk's character
film those women. Okay, I'm still like traumatized. Okay, I
need someone to explain, like when you came. So Carolyn
(14:07):
brings you, and she's like, we need to be funny,
thank god.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So we need to add a little more.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Funny definitely, and thank God and.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Other stuff that I bring. Carolyn didn't see me as
a stand up. I had written a pilot for HBO
that was about the beauty world, and so she saw
that there was more.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Than jokes, obviously, And I mean sometimes it doesn't even
matter if they see that, because that's what you bring anyway,
and luckily they let us bring it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah. But I was also coming from network television, right comedies,
So I was liberated to be in a free zone
where you could write stuff without editing yourself or having
a network edit you.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I really felt like, you know, like those really long
leashes that dogs don't even know they're on. Yeah, that's
what I.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Felt like, Oh, how great. So it was a great
experience you were.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
From the beginning, it was just how great run, Run, Run,
Run run.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
In your mind? Did you what did you see in
terms of like how it would go or how long
you would do it, or like what was your vision?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I just was having the great creative experience of learning
so much but also doing something so new that no
one even knew what it was. The first season was
just Darren and I in a room making each other laugh,
and like I remember once Darren had the flu really
(15:40):
bad and he was typing and it was it was
the episode with the flabby ass guy when Samantha dates
the old guy was ass doesn't exist, and I said
something and Darren left so hard that he snotted on
the keyboard as he was typing because he was sick.
So the first time I had an inkling was when
(16:04):
you know we did all twelve before, Yeah, I remember
it was the first time I had an inkling was
when they sent us the trailer they had cut together,
and I thought, this is going to be hilarious because
they cut all the spiky moments, the sex moments, which
(16:24):
was our calling card right right, And then something else
became are staying cards right?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Because that's the next question is like in your mind,
did you think like this is going to make a splash.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I wasn't thinking like that.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
You're just in it.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I was just I just felt like there was no end.
I just felt like, oh, we just keep going.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Saying goodness.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I just felt like, Oh, these characters, these actors, this world,
this is always going to be both painful in a
great way and funny because it's painful. But it never
felt to me like I ever had to reach for
(17:09):
the next thought. It was just like, oh, how do
we tell that story? And what's the story there? And
never I never thought I was completely in the moment
the whole time.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I mean, and when I do talk to writers and people,
they always say like wow, and I go, yeah, everybody
wants sex in the city, but they only want sex
in the city season four.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
They don't remember season one, right, they don't, and they
don't they don't remember that it grew.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
It was one story and we had that, they gave
that it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Was one from each other. We kept discovering it. And
you know, in speaking of they of married pigs, my
I haven't seen those ever until I was given my
homework assignment are you as Charlotte. My story that I
told myself and other people about the first season was
(18:07):
I didn't even know what the show was to the finale,
which is O, come all, ye faithful, right, And then
when I looked at Bay and Mary Pigs, I was like,
I'm not going to say that again.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
It's so true because you knew the thesis.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yes, it's there, the.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Thesis of the entire series, the thesis. It's true, clear
as a bell, which is married people think single people
are lepers, right, which is what we built definitely.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
But also then at the end, how she comes back
together with us, think about how many times over the
years we have filmed that scene.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, I know, it's amazing, amazing. And as far as
you saying, oh, I didn't know what I was doing,
and I'm me saying, oh I didn't know who Charlotte was,
she's pretty clear in that episode.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's true when you think about that, and thank god,
because I was, I was like, oh my god, is
the whole episode good? The whole first season going to
be me flailing? I knew that the episode you reverenced,
which I hate to even say it still forty years later,
thirty years later up the butt obviously is a very
specific set of memories of like joy of performing as
(19:16):
well as like humiliation.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
You know that is the joy definitely, Definitely they go together.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
They go together, especially for Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And what you grew to embrace as an actor, Yeah,
was the absolute joy of being in a moment that
could be considered embarrassing totally and just going with it.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
It's true. It's true.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, at some point one of you, either Darren or you,
I can't remember which, said you know you're going to
have to get the pie in the face.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Now, I know, if you talk.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
To each of us, each of us really feels like
we had to get the pie in the face.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And probably that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I always say it's going to be a queen pie. Yeah,
you know you're gonna get hit, You're gonna get hit.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And I mean that was really I remember going like, oh, okay,
that I need to embrace that. That is what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I think the reason the show was tolerable was because
the heroes were also the fools. Definitely the soap Every
as soon as somebody stood on a soapbox, which Charlotte did,
oh so often, we always broke the soapbox, right, so
she felt at the end you can't make a speech
on the show without getting a cream pie.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
It just was the real It was the It was
the balance of the strident.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right right right right, And I mean I think I
was the most strident. I mean, I guess Samantha in
her own way is also but she's also just you know,
she's powerful, whereas I'm like, I mean, I don't know
if I'm powerful or whatever, but I mean I remember
those power You're so sweet. I might be powerful now,
but only because you saw me. Like I have to
(20:52):
give you credit for this, Like if you had not
seen me, I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, well, if you hadn't been there, there wouldn't have
been no Charlotte. It's true. I mean, the reality of
this rose that just kept opening and opening and opening
and opening and opening and opening and opening. I was like, Wow,
this could just go on forever. And it did. But
you know, talk about the speaking of going on forever,
talking about the embarrassment, the journey that you took from
(21:21):
that first up the butt comedy horrified Kristen, Yes, to
all the way to Dingust like that, which was the
scene where you had to hold you're going to blow
Harry in the bathroom, and we had a prosthetic penis made,
and it would say.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
How beautiful it was.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Though, okay, it's very beautiful.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
It was a you know, I didn't I wanted to,
you know, make Harry do justice, do justice to the
the story that Harry and Charlotte have a great sex life.
But anyway, there was this beautiful penis where beautiful fakes
and we've never seen Charlotte actually touch it. We've hinted
through the many years of this that she's kind of
great and wild in bed, right, she has that side.
(22:08):
She's open and will we're married about you know what?
Thank God, Yes, But you're kneeling on the floor take
after take after take with this fake penis, totally embracing,
and then Kathy Yang, who plays Lily, is opening the
door at the wrong time and you're like, no, no, baby,
it has to be after I hold the penis, just
(22:32):
wait a couple of seconds till the penis is in
my hand. And I literally went into you afterwards and said,
you're my favorite ever. The attitude around kneeling on a
floor in front of your family, the crew gently telling Kathy,
a younger actor, that she can't open the door to
(22:52):
you have the fake penis in your hand with the
best attitude, and I think you said most fun day
ever at the end.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
It was fun. It was really fun.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
And that's the journey.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
That is the journey.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
And I think, like for me, and this is the
part where I mean, I kind of am like the
thing about are you a Charlotte? And let's pause for
a second and give Michael full credit. So we're working
in just like that, the idea of this podcast has
come to me.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
This is now like I.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Think the third or fourth I mean, people are continually
trying to get all this to do podcasts, which is
of course very flattering, but it wasn't the right time
and you know, really, you know, and I were going
to do one, and then we did the show instead,
and so then again this new idea came and I
was at work with Michael and I was like, Michael,
I just want to run this thing by you. You know,
we're thinking about this, and we're thinking about talking about
the themes, the themes of the show, and I think
(23:36):
I'm like two sentences in and Michael says, this is
how Michael works. He's like a pure creative. I'm two
sentences in I'm nervously telling him, thinking that he's not
going to prove and he says, I have a name,
and I'm like, oh, okay, what is it? You said?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Are you a Charlotte? And I was like, this is
the joy that you are? You know, He's just.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Firing on all cylinders at all times. I'm just talking
to them now. But wait, I want to said this
about Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
What I was going to say was part of me.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So like, if you think about Charlotte in the beginning,
even in her kind of unformed self, and I think
you know that. You know the weird thing about when
I was in the pilot and they tried to get
me to sign a different contract saying I was recurring, right,
do you understand that? Because I still don't.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
No, I wasn't there, right, Like, what.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The hell did anyone ever say that to you when
you came like we don't know what to do with her?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Okay, because I think I think a we were over budget,
which you know is kind of our mo Our brand.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Is our brand, you guys, It's definitely our brand.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Thank god it works.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Out exactly, thank you everybody on the screen exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So they give me this some line producer that I
never saw again comes to my trailer one day. You
know you've signed like the seven years of course contract.
She comes with this two page contract that says, you know,
I Kristin Davis and playing Charlotte. She's a recurring character
for five thousand dollars an episode. And I was like,
you laugh. I was like, no, I'm not close enough
(25:01):
to the girls at that point to talk to them, right.
I don't know what to do. Call my lawyer. I'm like,
what do I do?
Speaker 2 (25:05):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And he says, don't sign it. Don't sign it. And
I'm like, but they're going to come tomorrow and they're
going to ask because you know me in the room,
right And he's like, listen, just pretend that you forgot.
And I'm like okay. So the rest of the pilot,
I have to do this every day.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
They're like, did you bring the paperwork?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I'm such a dopey actress, blonde like the rest of them.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Anyway, I never sign it, right, And then we go
off and we have that very.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
You did the entire series pilot without signing that contract.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I'd signed the big fat seven years, but not the
recurring that would have made the first one null and
boy right because I wanted that Hell was that right?
That's my inner thing that now rough comes to live.
I know, But see this is what I see, what
I see the beginning of the show. You know what
I'm saying, Like, that's when I say I'm on a
tight wire. I have inside the knowledge that someone tried
(25:57):
to demote me. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, but luckily.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So everything has to be perfect.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Everything has to be perfect.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
And also like my my my spot is unfulfilled, meaning
like not by me, but like they don't know what
it is. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I'm flashing to what the episode where Charlotte says to
Trey's mother the prenup, I'm worth a million.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, one of the best moment.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Remember that I'm worth a million.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I do remember that vividly.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The growth of Charlotte, and look at the growth of you.
Who wouldn't sign that contract rather than going in there
to them and saying I'm worth regular.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
To this totally I know, but this is the fear,
and I think back.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
On this, now, that's interesting that you would have carried
that sort of shakiness, that somebody behind the scenes didn't
think you belong as a regular.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Right, that that is the truth, I understand my experience.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And no one ever heard that.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
You didn't even know you guys, you didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I never even heard that or thought that that.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Was somebody as a secret.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Because once again, let's go back to the writing. You
didn't have anything in the pilot exactly. You would say, well,
what are we going to do with her? Maybe make
her reoccurring?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Right, And she's not over budget.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Happily blowing people, she's not the writer of it, and
she's not the uptight lawyer spunky one. Right, what are
we going to do with her? Make a reoccurring because
we don't know what the character is.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And when you read the Kansas's books, she's also not reoccurring, right,
I know.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So they really tried.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I know, so luckily, for whatever you know, magical reason,
I didn't do it. And you know, it's not like
I'm the most confident and even agree with you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I think I've everyone. I think you're one of the
most level headed, smart business people that I've met, you
know exactly what's what in all these negotiations as we've
gone through the years. Ye're the one who goes, Okay,
here's the reality. Now what's supposed to happen. Here's the reality.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Some people get so mad about that too.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
No, I think you're really smart. You're the one who
goes like, Okay, that will be nice, but here's what
is happening. And sometimes I'm wrong and also weighing the
reality of I want this or do I give.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Up totally because to me, the work, the work is
so special and so unique and amazing and once in
a lifetime I am fine giving stuff up. But I
wasn't fine being recurring no thank you. I shouldn't happen
exactly so, but I you knew I did. I had
a sense they far sense that they needed my voice.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
The fact that they don't know what to do with
me is the reason they need me.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
But that's such a scary place to be, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So like when I look at myself, and also I
do feel also just as a human being, Like when
I watched the three of them in the pilot, I
feel like they're powerful. Now, yes, it's the writing, but
I also feel like per formance wise, like you know,
even Cynthia is Miranda when she you know, remember she
pushes Sure, you know what I mean. Sure, I'm like,
oh god, I wish I was like that.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
But I'm more like, you're not like that at all.
That's your internal projection on that Orc. Okay, you're not.
You're I think, if anything, you're delicate, Okay, okay, which
is Charlotte. Yes, I guess you were a Charlotte even
before you knew that you were a Charlotte.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I think that must be true.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
And I mean, you know, there is like this one
part of me that's not a Charlotte, right, which is
like the when you talk about the scene with the
prosthetic penis.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
That's the part of me where I'm like, yes, there.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
We I am more bohemian and open and whatever. You know,
I'm not married in life. You don't.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I'm going to tell you a story. Oh, I'll tell
you a story about how different you are than Charlotte. Yay.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I'm scared.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
At one point in one of the seasons, I think,
like season four, at the end on Hiatus, you're going
to go on a far yes, and you had a
person a boy to go with that then didn't happen.
And remember you because of this, you went on the
safari totally alone. And it was a high end, very fancy,
(30:17):
fancy couple driven, blissful, honeymoon esque moneyed safari where there
was nobody else, just you and this man who wound
up not going.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Oh that one, yes, and you shall not be named.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
He shall not fool. We'll call him asshole for this podcast,
will call him asshole number five, assuming there was four
others before him. But at least you went on the
safari alone, totally alone, and you told me a story
(30:56):
that the guides were carrying you around and setting you
up in these beautiful tents and things, and one of
the guides said to you at one point, are you
a princess? Because they did not understand the royal way
that you were treating yourself alone.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And that's when I thought she's so strong, she's such
a warrior that she did not need a man to
go with her. Charlotte would have never gone at that
point right now, might now, but at that point would
never have gone. And I thought that was such a
(31:39):
funny dichotomy between between what people think of you as
who you really are, that sort of warrior nature. I'm
an individual. I'll take my life anyway to make it
my life. And I thought that was a big difference
between you and the essence of Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's true, it's true. It's well. But it's funny because
the thing that they asked me many times before they
finally asked me if I was a princess was where
is your husband? Where is your husband? Then they say
where's your father? And I'd just be like, oh my god.
You know, I mean, obviously cultural differences, but still, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I went to Mexico once while we were doing the
show by myself and they kept saying, Senior, where's your wife?
Where's your wife? And they would play mariachi and they'd
get to my table and just go and just move
over to the next couple. Oh my god. That idea
of the humiliation of being single is really one of
(32:39):
the things that fueled my birthright into this series. Not
the fact that I was a woman, or not the
fact that I was a single lady, but the fact
that I was an outsider, which is what the in
the society, which is I was a gay man, who
couldn't get married at the time. So it's an interesting
(32:59):
thing that outsider this, the anarchy of that was really
the thing that I found so thrilling to write. All
the humiliation that happened so much.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And there's so much and ongoing.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That was the white people related to it. Yeah, I
think the audiences that were single related to the constant
humiliation and then the constant getting back up and going
on the safari alone or just going to the party
by yourself.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Right right, it's all giant never ends, man.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
It never ends. I know, it never ends.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
The weddings are the worst. The weddings are the worst,
which we say pigs or the best.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I guess pigs. The weddings. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
So amazing to think about how long. Right, So remember
she's on the street with the Stanford and they've run
into that guy.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Who He's like, she seen you since and he says
since I was?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I mean, And then they can't technically get married, but
they're all getting married with the Lays and Stanford makes
funny jokes. But I mean, it's insane to think about.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Well, that's also incredibly I think oddly I'm still ahead
of the curve. Yeah, Unfortunately society has not yet got
the message to stop treating people this way. I know
it's still and you know, we're dealing with it, and
just like that, we're dealing like, oh, you're fifty something,
(34:29):
you should be further along, and people are like, what, No,
we're humans. But when I saw Bay and Mary Pigs,
I was like, wow, it's comic. Yes, it's humiliating. And
the other thing that surprised me was how involved it
all was already. Yes, I mean Charlotte goes all the
way to China, picked China out with that guy. I
(34:52):
mean I was like, wow, we just kept going I
don't even remember him well.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
And also like, do you remember how Trey and I
go and pick China?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, eventually yes, But the idea the DNA is there.
I mean, the fact of the matter is what was
so thrilling for me to write. It is stuff that
you know, network sitcoms were twenty three minutes twenty three Yeah,
character goes out the window, you don't get that extra bump.
Samantha and the Irish doorman that is so meat, That
(35:23):
is so me. When he says I just been so
sad since I left home I'm longing for the touch
of a woman that that is and that actor.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Oh my god, buy Andy.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
We keep it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Nicole hall of Center. Nicole directed.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Can you believe she dressed so early?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah? I don't. I was no idea. Nicole halli Center
is amazing director, but one of her super super super superpowers.
And I have this too. I'm abashedly bragging. Is casting
you are you know you know what that is. But
Nicole with straight guys. Nicole cast those straight guys, that
guy married couple that carry has lunch. Yeah yeah, yeah,
(36:05):
so adorable.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
They're so good.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
And so when you see the writing and the performing,
I'm like, this is very sorry, I'm going to say it,
this is very high quality. The third episode in terms
of people, the jokes are there, and that pepper mill
Dick and which.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I remember that whole scene it went on to get
that pepper mill to at the right time. That was
like such a that was like a like a lab
of like us learning how to do a coffee shop
scene that we would do many many back then. We
didn't have enough time because we were like man, trying
(36:42):
to get it all in, but trying to get it
all orchestrated and all of us talking. Remember how you
were like talk past or, talk.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Pastor's that's good. And that wasn't even directed.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Because we had to get the you know, this is
why in the trailer at that point, we were all
in the trailer together, all running our line, so that
when we got out there, you didn't yell at us,
or nobody yelled at us, not just you know, we
had to be like just not just Michael, just because
we were tired too, you know what I mean. And
it was a lot, but like that dialogue, it was
it was a different That's the first time in terms
of the show where I'm watching back in the beginning
(37:17):
where I'm like, yes, that's the thing became the thing. Yes,
and that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
That's so hard as an actor to do.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
And when people come on as guest stars they're like,
oh my god, it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
But even Charlotte in that when she goes to the party,
she's dropping all the really specific this is a classic
six on the Upper West Side. No man would ever
have this unless he was he's going to ask you
to marry him. Yeah, and then he does, I mean,
and then she's like then she takes it to the
next level. And then the comedy is the China patterns.
It couldn't work, I.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Know, and for sure he picks a bad one. I'm like, yeah, no, no,
but she's picky.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
They all come together at the end and go to
a movie, and that that overview of the whole thing
about that terrible moods, the terrible cheesy, cheesy.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
Can you believe how far we've come?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Oh, that's what I was you said.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You said the production values, and I was like, this
is what he was talking about.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
What about Charlotte's bedroom, I.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Had too flats. I couldn't believe I had a hallway, okay.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Because in the beginning I only had two flats, and
I don't know how they made that hallway come. But
also like I'm so sad, like it's another growth thing
of Charlotte. Like that kid, that guy talking about how
he just needed the touch of a woman in the
Irish accent.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
And I just make a face at him.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
It's so sad, Charlotte Dorman in your house. Well, that's true,
and that is what I guess what Charlotte wild think.
It is inappropriate and confusing.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
But he's just.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah, he's dreaming, he's haunted. He has the sad irish haunted.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
So sad I love it.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
But it's just so, It's just that That's why I
was so happy there because the idea of her coming home,
You're Charlotte taking Samantha home, which is never good when
you do, by the way, it never goes well, never
goes well when she comes in from the actual environment.
I mean, she slept with your brother. That another episode,
which is, by the way, one of the big missteps
of the entire series. I wish that shouldn't happen.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
That was very confused.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Two things that I go, what's the other thing that
we talked about Carrie's father, Yes, episode that we actually
show a picture of book and I was like, this
is so we're on such thin ice. Let's get off
this right now.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
And even Charlotte's.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Wedding, we didn't even introduce the parents because I was
not interested.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, And let's just because people have asked me that
occasionally over the years, like why what was the thinking
that you wouldn't do backstory?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
You know what I'm saying, because when you moved to
New York, or my experience of moving to New York
at twenty, Whose parents do you meet?
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Good Point?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
You never do. I mean it's like you meet your friends,
you never meet their parents. I mean maybe you do.
And all of a sudden, what I became very aware
of is that you guys were becoming so vibrant that
to bring a parent in is never going to measure up.
It's going to be disappointing. Like who's Carrie's mother, Who's
(40:27):
Charlotte's mother, Barbara Perkins? Maybe maybe? But then what then
you're doing that story? And the only parents we brought
in was Miranda's mother who was killed never saw, and
we brought in the husband's mothers. They completely affected the
main characters good Point, Trey's mother affected Charlotte and Miranda's mother,
(40:51):
Steve's mother affected Miranda's story. But it was what are
we going to get from bringing in these people that
were sort of they all met like alchymyl alchemically in
New York. They didn't need any backstory to know each other.
I don't know. I don't think I ever met anybody
when I was in thirty in New York. Did I
(41:11):
meet anybody's parents. Not until they started getting married, right,
But when Charlotte got married. I was like, no, I
don't want to see the father. It's not their story, right,
It's the story of I jerked off, he jerked off,
and maybe he jerked off right before. It's that's the
story you and Carrie and just you actually only see
(41:32):
a shoulder. Remember ever your father was.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I remember that. I remember that.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
I think somebody's dancing with You're dancing with somebody's father.
Somebody's dancing with Carrie's dancing with somebody, somebody that's like
an uncle, or maybe maybe the groom's father. I forgot,
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
I don't know, but.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
It's always treacherous. That's what the show was to show
us about the friendships of the family you make.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Totally the family you make, this is important to make.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
And I learned the lesson when we were talking about
who's Steve's mother was. Every single writer in the room
had a different idea of who Steve's mother was. I
was like, oh, this is a nightmare, so I'm just
going to do mine.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
I love it and rightly so alcoholic, rightly character. Okay, Michael,
obviously you and I can talk forever.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
I hope everyone's enjoying it. We're going to make this
into two episodes.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Is that okay too? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Sure, at least so you can stay and talks more,
of course,
Host
Kristin Davis
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