Have you ever watched an episode of Sex and the City and thought, “I couldn't help but wonder, who else could have played Carrie Bradshaw?” Yeah, me neither. But maybe we should have because it turns out that Sarah Jessica Parker almost quit Sex and the City before the show even premiered.
Sarah revealed the news during a recent appearance on Kristin Davis' podcast, Are You a Charlotte?, telling her that she seriously thought about backing out of what would become a career-defining show. “When the show was picked up, I panicked. I was like, I can't be on a TV show. I don't think I'm suited for that life.”
“It also kind of depressed me. I think that it was the idea of doing the same thing over and over and over again,” she explained, adding that she liked being a “journeyman” actor with the ability to move from project to project. After all, Sarah had already been working for over 15 years when Sex and the City premiered in 1998, and she was used to going from project to project, including film and theater. “The idea of a television series meant that I couldn't do all those things. And it just kind of felt like somebody was, you know, putting their hand over my mouth or something,” she said.
The feeling was so strong that the actor actually went to her agents to ask if she could get out of the show entirely. Her agents convinced her to give the show a real try, telling her, “Do it for a year, and if you don't want to do it anymore, we won't do it.”
Thankfully, Sarah didn't even need an entire season to convince her. All it took was meeting costume designer Patricia Field. After that, Sarah said, Sex and the City “went from being this oppressive idea to endless possibilities.” The rest, as they say, is history. “I never looked back. And I was never not happy to be there. There was no place I would rather have been than on our set every single solitary day.”
And it's a good thing she feels that way, considering it's over two decades later and she's still playing Carrie Bradshaw. The third season of And Just Like That... premieres May 29 on HBO.
