This is the classic pioneer of single-girl dramedies, the first of its kind to truly highlight the presence of female sensuality as viewers got to live vicariously through these four women from New York City.
We are talking about “Sex and the City,” of course, which will never go out of style (though some of Carrie’s clothes have passed their prime). It’s never too late to learn some new stuff about our favorite gang and what went on behind the scenes.
Talk About Endurance…
We all know that the character of Carrie Bradshaw was a little bit, shall we say, obsessed with shoes. Well, what you might not have considered is the fact that Parker, who played Bradshaw, had to shoot long days of filming in all those heels.
That means that she could be spending 18 hour days in heels! For any of you out that who’ve ever worn heels, which we’d imagine is most of you, that’s absolutely brutal. We tip our hats to you Parker, way to go.
Yes to the Dress
In the "Sex and the City" movie, Carrie wears an absolutely stunning Vivienne Westwood wedding dress. In one of the scenes, she receives a note telling her to wear the dress. The note, as it turns out, was written by Vivienne Westwood herself!
The dress cost a whopping $15,700, which is an absolutely absurd amount of money. Apparently, however, some people felt that price was totally worth it because the dress became so popular after the movie that net-a-porter.com sold out of the dress within a few hours!
Thank Goodness
Let’s be real for a moment. Can any of you out there actually imagine someone besides Sarah Jessica Parker playing Carrie Bradshaw?
She is the epitome of Carrie. That being said, Parker revealed that we were pretty close to having a different actress. Parker’s agent had to persuade her to play the part. The second choice was “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce” actress Lisa Edelstein. It’s hard to imagine...
Thank Goodness
Okay, okay, so we didn’t actually think that in the scene where Miranda’s cat Fatty is playing with Blake’s umbilical cord, that it was a real umbilical cord. That being said, we are extremely happy to know that it was, in fact, just a piece of beef jerky attached to a string.
I mean, we wouldn’t put it past someone in Hollywood to somehow get their hands on someone’s umbilical cord….so yeah, we’re a little relieved.
Besties, but for Real
Who remembers the “All That Glitters” episode? Well, if you do or don’t, in that episode, there’s a shoe salesman who is played by none other than Andy Cohen.
Cohen and Sarah Jessica Parker actually became besties after his cameo back in the fourth season and continue to be super tight. They even accompany each other to The Met Gala!
Same Same
Whenever we have babies in shows, we always want to know what they look like as they grow. Well, we got a brief snippet of Brady, Miranda’s son, as a toddler.
Brady, played by Joseph Pupo, also got to play the little ginger in the series as well as the "Sex and the City" movie! We kind of want to know what he looks like now, though, now that some years have passed...
Switch the Style up
If you can believe it, the original style was supposed to be….drumroll please... mockumentary, like “The Office.” Can you even imagine that?
This little fact was revealed by producer Amy B. Harris. The characters would be looking and speaking straight into the camera. For reasons unknown, they decided to go with the current filming format. We wonder how it might have looked the other way, though...
A True Art Collector
During the period of the show where Carrie is dating Aleksandr Petrovsky, played by the incredible Mikhail Baryshnikov, audiences got to see a slew of amazing artwork inside his home.
Much of the artwork, it turns out, actually belongs to the famous ballet dancer. He agreed to have it featured in the show.
Ginger Spice….As a Blonde?
The character Phoebe, who Samantha happens to run into on the street, was played by Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell. Halliwell was known in the Spice Girls as Ginger Spice, so we’re a bit shocked that she shows up in the show as a blonde!
The scene was filmed outside Soho House, where fellow Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and David Beckham were staying at the time. She, too, was offered a cameo, but she turned it down.
Brunch, Brunch, Brunch
Unlike the cocktails, which we now know were fake, the food served at the brunches where the girls often spilled the gossip about their latest male conquest was totally real!
Not only was it real, but Parker and Nixon actually ate the food, whether it was cold or hot, in the name of complete authenticity. If you have to look like you’re eating and you’re served real food, why not actually eat?
In the Name of Authenticity
There’s a scene where Bunny makes Charlotte sign a prenuptial agreement before getting married.
Although chances are the audience members didn’t pause the screen to actually read the contract, production decided not to fake it and had an actual lawyer write the contract. Talk about being 200% authentic, right? Even TV couples can’t be too careful.
Sweet Tooth Mania
If any of you fans out there remember, Miranda and Carrie ate cupcakes at the famous Magnolia Bakery; however, this popular bakery wasn’t quite so popular until it was featured on the show!
Since its "Sex and the City" exposure, the bakery became so bombarded with customers, they had to begin employing a bouncer to ensure people civilly waited their turn.
Designer or Not Designer
It’s a fairly known fact that Sarah Jessica Parker had an unbelievable wardrobe in that show. Love it or hate it, her designer outfits were standout. It turns out, however, that not every article of clothing was from a top designer.
It turns out that the famous tutu Carrie wears in the show’s opening sequence not only wasn’t designer but was actually a complete no-name brand found in the bargain bin and cost only $5.
Whoopsie!
The opening credits show a fairly iconic shot of Carrie being splashed by a bus with her own ad on the side of it. Well, if you look closely, the first shot of the bus has passengers on it, while the second shot of the bus shows it completely empty!
This is probably something the editing team should have picked up on. Well, maybe they did, and it was too late to reshoot it. No biggie, really.
Secret Credits
Somewhere, deep in the vaults of MTV, there is an alternate opening credits scene just sitting there, waiting to be seen by faithful fans! In this sequence, Parker is wearing a blue dress, and she doesn’t get splashed by the bus.
Instead of getting splashed, she actually strips. We’re kind of dying to know in what context she would do that, so MTV, if you’re reading this, could you release that footage? Please, and thank you.
Fake Ginger Alert!
Each of the four main girls (Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha) has her own signature look. Miranda, however, is our token redhead….or is she?
The dirty truth is, Miranda actress Cynthia Nixon is a natural blonde and had her hair dyed for all six seasons. It’s not that it’s surprising that an actor would dye their hair for a role. However, it is surprising that whoever did her hair dye managed to make her look like a natural redhead, one of the hardest hair colors to recreate.
No Longer Appropriate
If any of you happen to remember the opening credits, you might remember that Sarah Jessica Parker’s name showed up with a view of the world trade centers. Well, after 9/11, it seemed maybe a bit inappropriate to have the no longer standing buildings, which brought up a lot of emotion amongst Americans, still in the credits.
After this attack, the opening sequence was changed to have Parker’s name appear in the background of the Empire State Building.
Diversity Now!
It actually took quite a while before "Sex and the City" introduced a non-white love interest for one of our leading ladies. Cynthia Nixon noted that she and Sarah Jessica Parker were the strongest advocates for more diversity.
Nixon called it “irresponsible.” Eventually, production took their complaints to heart and finally began diversifying the men on the show.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Kristen Davis, who played our beloved Charlotte, had some reservations about telling her family details about the show. She was a bit afraid it might shock them. Actually, she never even told her grandmother and politely asked her parents not to watch it.
Ultimately though, she is their daughter, and they did end up watching the show. Her father, who’s a college professor, even managed to grab some examples from the show to use in his lectures.
Question About Questions
A running motif throughout the show was the questions Carrie would ask as she wrote her columns. In six full seasons, Carrie asked a total of 92 questions, but it was the final question that proved to be most poignant.
What was her final question? “Is it time to stop questioning?”. We wonder if that was planned from the beginning or someone came up with it later on. Either way, it’s an interesting way to ask the last question.
The Recognition of Success
"Sex and the City" creator Darren Star recognized the potential success in Candace Bushell when he read her newspaper columns that inspired the show. It’s rumored that Star ended up paying Bushnell $60,000 for the rights to the columns, which, given the exponentially large success of the show, was quite a steal.
In retrospect, we realize just how much money could have been made on those columns, but at the time, that amount of money was immense for a writer living in NYC.
Back Off About the Age Thing!
Who can forget the “BIG-ger" than life romance between...well...Mr. Big and Carrie? Well turns out that many fans were uncomfortable with the large age gap between the two.
Showrunner, Michael Patrick King, got so fed up with the complaints, he decided to create a lover even older for Carrie just to stick it to them! Hence we have the romance between Carrie and Aleksandr Petrovsky, played by ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov.
10 Years
Let’s be real for a moment; Samantha is a downright BOSS. She’s free-spirited, sassy, and successful. It’s hard to believe that actress Kim Catrall actually thought she would be playing someone’s mother on the show, simply because she happens to be 10 years older than her fellow stars.
Well, think again, Ms. Samantha, because not only didn’t you play someone’s mother, but you played the most glorious character we could possibly think of. Age is just a number!
A Little Modesty, Please
If you’ve ever watched even one episode of "Sex and the City" (and we assume if you’re reading this, you’ve, in fact, watched many), you would know that there is quite a bit of nudity to go-'round between the main characters.
However, you might have noticed our leading lady, Carrie Bradshaw, doesn't have any. This isn’t by accident. Bradshaw actress, Sarah Jessica Parker, stipulated zero nude scenes in her contract.
Hair Gossip
While we’re already on the subject of hair, our leading lady was originally set to be a brunette, according to the script. A mere 24 hours before the pilot (talk about last minute), producers decided she needed to be a blonde.
Why, you might ask? Because originally writer Candance Bushnell, whom the character of Carrie is based on, is blonde. Honestly, we couldn’t imagine Carrie any other way.
Million-dollar Baby
Holy, Fricken’, moly! In season three, Sarah Jessica Parker became an executive producer while continuing to play the leading lady. The promotion, of sorts, ended up with Parker earning a whopping $3 million….per episode.
Now that’s an amount of money most of us couldn’t even dream of earning. But That Hollywood baby. If you make it, you make it BIG.
More Like Mocktails
If we say, “Sex and the City” cocktail, what comes to mind? We hope you thought of a Cosmopolitan because that is absolutely the drink of the series. The famous cocktails, however, were actually fake.
A mocktail, if you will. They were solely comprised of water, food coloring and cranberry juice, and ginger ale. The red wine they drank was also fake—just regular ‘ole grape juice.
What are the Odds?
Carrie’s medicine cabinet, though fairly nondescript, actually caught actress Sarah Jessica Parker’s eye at a flea market, but in her indecision, she didn’t end up buying it.
Later on, on second thought, she decided she wanted it. However, it had been sold already to “some TV show.” As luck would have it, the prop department shared her taste, and the cabinet was right there on set when Parker arrived for filming! What a coincidence!
Who Cares about Football Anyway?
It’s been a long-running tradition that syndicated episodes of "Sex and the City" be aired simultaneously to the Superbowl for those viewers out there that may not be so into the whole sports thing.
If you can believe it, this is still happening. That’s how popular this show is. It ended in 2004, and we still get reruns to keep our fans happy.
Demand and Supply
Here’s an absolutely wild fact that proves the power of fans. In the first movie, "Sex and the City," Carrie reads a book called "Love Letters of Great Men" from the library.
This book wasn’t, in fact, real, but fans began searching far and wide to find it. Eventually, producers realized the potential, and the book was created and published. If that isn’t an example of supply and demand, then we don’t know what is.
Short and Sweet
Fans were a bit disappointed when season eight ended up being only eight episodes long! Well, there was a good reason for it. The leading lady, Sarah Jessica Parker, was pregnant!
There are some actresses who are totally down with continuing to perform while pregnant, and it’s the wardrobe department’s job to hide it. Others, like Parker, prefer to take a step back and relax before the little bundle of joy arrives.
Method Acting at its Finest
All actors like to get into the zone when shooting or to perform on stage. It makes sense that fully embodying your character will make your performance more natural and believable.
Samantha actress Kim Cattrall was adamant about wearing heels even in scenes where she was being shot from above the waist. She claimed it helped her stay in character and feel more like Samantha.
The Real Mr. Big
Mr. Big, the successful financier, and entrepreneur was kind of a bigger-than-life character with his suave style and attitude. As it turns out, just like the character of Carrie Bradshaw was based on a real person (writer Bushnell), so was that of Mr. Big.
The original Mr. Big is successful publisher Ron Galotti, who Bushnell actually dated back in 1995. We wonder what Galotti thought of the character based on him.
A Close Call
Can you guys imagine what "Sex and the City" would have been like with another actress playing Carrie Bradshaw? Yeah, neither can we. That’s why we’re thanking our lucky stars that Sarah Jessica Parker didn’t do what she was thinking of doing.
It just so happens that Parker was fairly uncomfortable with a lot of the content in the show and was considering quitting after shooting the pilot. As you probably already know, she was convinced to stay, and the rest is history.
Carrie’s Actual Front Stoop
Carrie’s apartment in the show was located in the Upper East Side, but you might be surprised to find out that her front stoop wasn’t filmed in that area at all! The familiar front stoop is actually located in the West Village.
66 Perry Street, to be exact. Actually, none of the addresses given for the main characters in the show are real, which makes sense since fans might have tried showing up in those spots to check ‘em out and bother the actual people that would have lived there.
Tiffany and Co...Kinda…
Who doesn’t remember when Trey proposes to Charlotte? Well, it happens in a Tiffany and Co., but it turns out they didn’t actually shoot the scene in a real Tiffany’s.
For security reasons, the company wouldn’t allow them to shoot the scene inside the store, so production had to construct a fake Tiffany’s window instead! The real Tiffany’s still felt the need to send someone to approve the window before shooting in the scene.
A Good Deal
We can’t even imagine how amazing Sarah Jessica Parker’s wardrobe must be after playing Carrie Bradshaw for six seasons and two movies. Why? Well, because Parker ended up keeping about 70% of her costumes from the show.
As you might remember, no costume was ever repeated (except the fur coat), so 70% is….well, an unbelievable amount of clothing. Can we have some?
Cast Last but Unforgettable
We all remember Matthew McConaughey’s cameo in the episode “Escape From New York,” but did you know that he wasn’t the first choice for this role? Actually, he wasn’t even the second or third choice either!
The role was originally written for Alec Baldwin, but he turned it down. Casting then turned to George Clooney, who was also a no, then Warren Beatty, who also turned down the role, and then finally to McConaughey. I think we as fans are lucky it ended up playing out this way.
Drawing the Line at Piercings
Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda, agreed to dye her hair red for all six seasons of the show, but it was piercings where she drew the line. She didn’t have her ears already pierced and refused to do so for the show.
All of the earrings you see her wear in the series are actually clip-on. In fact, costume designers went so far as to send out to jewelers whose jewelry they like and have them turn certain pieces into clip-ons for them.
Too Close For Comfort
The show was still filming the final season while it was airing, which we can imagine was fairly stressful for production. The final episode of the entire series actually finished filming only four days before it aired.
This means they finished filming, and the editing crew had less than four days to edit and cut together the episode and send it out to be aired. Talk about cutting it down to the wire…
Many Emmys
History makers, "Sex and the City" was the first cable show to win an Emmy for Best Comedy! Not only that but many of the cast members won Emmys for outstanding performances!
Unfortunately, our lovely Kristin Davis, who played Charlotte, was the only of the four leading ladies not to win an Emmy. We love her anyway, though, and loved her portrayal of sweet Charlotte.
Why White?
So we’re not sure if any of you happened to notice this, but if you pay attention (not even that close attention), you might have picked up on the fact that Mr. Big’s wife, Natasha, was always featured wearing white.
Why did they do this, you might ask? It turns out the symbolism of the white was actually to signify that she was a bit boring...had a vanilla personality, if you will.
Still a Hit
This show was such an unbelievable hit that even though it ended in 2004 (yes, you read that right), there are still "Sex and the City"-related tourist attractions in New York.
A "Sex and the City"-inspired bus tour still runs and is even so popular that it continues to operate seven days a week. Some of the stops on the tour include Magnolia Bakery, Bleeker Street, and the front stoop of Carrie’s apartment.
Whew!
Here’s a shocking fact for you all out there! Kim Cattrall, who played Samantha, actually turned down the role three times before finally accepting. She was slightly nervous she wouldn’t be able to pull off the character and would end up being ridiculed.
Well, thank goodness she accepted in the end because we literally couldn't picture another person playing that role so perfectly.
Fictional Show in Fictional Show
Miranda was known to obsessively watch a BBC show called "Jules and Mimi." The racey show that she constantly Tivo’d wasn’t actually real!
We almost wish that it had been, but it was all made up for Miranda’s storyline. Hey BBC, it’s never too late to think about maybe make the fan’s dreams come true and actually producing Jules and Mimi!
The Insincerest of Breakups
We will literally NEVER forget that adorable ‘ole Pete ended up being the worst of them all and broke up with Carrie via Post-it. Well, you’ll be horrified to find out that this came about after the crew had a long discussion about their most humiliating breakups.
This means, ladies and gentlemen, that someone out there actually got broken up with via post-it, and someone else out there thought it was okay to actually break up with someone that way! I guess that was the equivalent to today's text breakup?
GoodBye
Now, who here remembers Pete, played by the adorable John Corbett? And who out of you remembers that he had a dog? Well, the dog we see on the screen wasn’t the first dog they tried to use.
Dog number one was inexplicably terrified of Corbett, which made it impossible to work with him. Eventually, they had to chalk that one up to a loss and find a different furry friend to capture all of our attention when he was on screen.
How it Came to Be
Candace Bushnell spent much of her young adult years as a writer in New York City, much like our protagonist, Carrie Bradshaw.
The "Sex and the City" author delved into her real-life adventure as a single woman in NYC in her writing. Eventually, they felt the stories were becoming too personal, and hence the character of Carrie was born. Carrie is Bushnell’s alter ego, through which she could tell her stories.
Fresh Finds from Field
One of the most discussed things about "Sex and the City" is the outfits! We’re bombarded every episode with absolutely fantastic designer looks from each character. Well costume designer, Patricia Field, made a point not to repeat a single outfit on any of the main girls for all six seasons, with just one exception.
The fur jacket that Carrier wears in the very first episode also appears in the last scene of the entire series. This was no accident folks, what a way to wrap it up.