Sarah Jessica Parker Explains Why She Tried Desperately to Get Out of ‘Sex and the City’

Sarah Jessica Parker is most associated with her role as writer and fashionista Carrie Bradshaw from HBO’s “Sex and the City.” Still, there was a time when she tried desperately to prevent that from happening. Parker sat down with Charlotte York herself — Kristin Davis — on her “Are You a Charlotte?” podcast to chat about the show. She explained how shocked she was to find out the “SATC’s” pilot had been picked up, and the lengths she went to try to get out of it.

Parker Had a Brilliant Idea to Get Out of ‘Sex and the City’

Parker and Davis discussed doing the table read for Sex and the City. For Parker, it was her first time meeting Kim Cattrall, Chris Noth, and Davis. Cynthia Nixon, on the other hand, she had known since she was 12, after doing a recording of “Little House on the Prairie” together. The pilot was shot ten days later. But as time went on, she completely forgot about it. Then, a producer stopped her on the street in New York City.

“She told me, “‘Oh my gosh, I saw your show.’ I said, ‘What show?’ She said, ‘Your pilot.’ And I was like, ‘What pilot?'” The woman refreshed her memory and told Parker it was “really good.” But Parker still didn’t think anything of it — until she got a call that it had been picked up.

“I panicked,” she told Davis. “I was like, ‘I can’t be on a TV show, I don’t think I’m suited for that life.” She’d been on TV shows before, and although she had some good memories, she admitted that, “It also kind of depressed me. And I think that it was the idea of doing the same thing over and over and over again.”

“‘Can you get me out of this?'” Parker recalled begging her agent. She even had a perfect idea to work for HBO, doing films in exchange for being let off the hook for “Sex and the City.” “I will offer my services to HBO to fulfill my contract. So, any movies I’ll do for X number of years.”

Sarah Jessica Parker Had a Dramatic Change of Heart

Craig Blankenhorn/Max

Luckily for fans of the show, Parker had a change of heart. After trying to convince her agent that it was a bad idea, he offered a different perspective. “He said, ‘Of course we can talk to… but, it can be wonderful. It can be great,'” she remembered him saying.

The accommodating attitude of HBO’s former chairman convinced her even further. “Chris Albrecht said at the time, ‘Do it for a year, and if you don’t want to do it anymore, we won’t do it,'” she shared.

More people were hired whom she’d worked with before, and she began to feel better about it. “All of a sudden, it didn’t feel like the same thing,” she said. “It felt like a brand new, exciting, completely unknown. Like somebody was offering me a menu of food that I’d only ever heard about.”

She went on to win two Emmys and four Golden Globes for her portrayal as Carrie Bradshaw. The “Sex and the City” revival series, “And Just Like That,” returns for its third season on May 29.