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