"Sex and the City" 20th Anniversary: Creator Darren Star Reflects on Groundbreaking Series, Franchise's Future

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More than 20 years ago, Darren Star was ready to hold auditions for
a new show about female friendships and sexual relationships, titled
“Sex and the City.”

Star, who had come off creating “Beverly Hills, 90210? and “Melrose
Place,” needed to find his core four — the female actresses who
would soon become known to the world as Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda
and Samantha.

Today, those four names — and the actresses who portrayed them,
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon
— are synonymous with one of the biggest pop culture phenomenons in
TV history.

And the show still resonates today. Airing long before the Me Too
era and female-forward programming, the comedy was ahead of its
time, putting confidentially flawed, unapologetically single career
women at the forefront of TV, exuding themes of female friendship,
female empowerment and casual sex. “Sex and the City” has held onto
its original fanbase and has found a new audience over the past two
decades by airing in syndication, inspiring a prequel television
series on the CW and spawning two feature films — and nearly a
third.

So what’s next for “Sex and the City?” Variety spoke with the
creator, Star, to find out…

Can you believe it’s been 20 years, since “Sex and the City”
premiered?

Darren Star: It is very hard to believe. It’s a very sobering
thought.

Why do you think the show still resonates with audiences today?

It really is a testament to those characters and those actresses.
Ultimately, I think the show is about something that’s universal —
friendships and relationships. It’s gratifying to know that
audiences still care about the show and is still invested in it,
after all these years.

Being a female-forward show, was there any pushback from networks at
the time you were pitching the show?

That’s one reason I wanted to bring it to HBO because they were
looking to do things that were certainly out of the box and wasn’t
thought to have been commercial. They were always very supportive of
really pushing boundaries, and from the beginning, I really looked
at the show of being the equivalent of an independent film for
television. It was not so commercial. I never wanted it to be. I
never thought it was appropriate material for one of the broadcast
networks.

Looking back, do you consider “Sex and the City” to be ahead of its
time?

I definitely felt that I was doing something that had not been done
on television before quite this way. But I also feel like network TV
is very behind the times, so it wasn’t ahead of its time, in terms
of reflecting the lives of these characters and it felt like the
audience was ready to see this show. Broadcast television has always
been very behind the curve of what’s permissible. It’s very
sanitized. If this was going to be a show that was going to be about
sexual relationships and was going to be very frank and honest, this
was obviously not going to be appropriate for broadcast television,
but I felt the adult audience out there was certainly ready for this
show.

At the time, did you feel like you were ahead of the curve?

I used to feel like it was right on time because it did connect with
its audience, so I think it was the right show at the right time, in
that regard, because the audience was ready for the show. But beyond
that, I think it’s was a single-camera comedy without a laugh track,
at a time when every comedy on television was a sitcom. So in that
respect, it was certainly ahead of its time for what comedy has
evolved to look like on television. Now, primarily, shows are
single-camera comedies.

Could “Sex and the City” have been around today?

The show is a reflection of its time. Of course, I think there are
shows like it that are around today — I think “Girls” has elements
of “Sex and the City” — and I think there’s always going to be shows
that are honest about female points of view and shows and that are
honest about sex and relationships. I feel like there are many more
shows like that out there now. At the time that we did “Sex and the
City,” the landscape was so different. There weren’t many places to
program a show like that or many companies that would take that kind
of risk that HBO did.

The show centers around four white women. If “Sex and the City” were
pitched today, how would the show look different?

There would probably be a gay character and it would probably be
more diverse, but at the same time, this is what that show was
about. It was about those four women, and I think “Sex and the City”
can only be conceived in the context of the time that it was done,
and any show that is done now would not be “Sex and the City;” it
would be something else because it’s 20 years later. I think its an
apples and oranges type of question. “Sex and the City” would
obviously be a completely different show today, in terms of how it
would be conceived from the very beginning. You might even have a
gender-fluid character on the show. From the ground up, we would
just be thinking of it differently 20 years later.

Today, many shows revolve around flawed female characters, but
Carrie Bradshaw was truly a unique central character for a show —
she wasn’t just a woman, but she was a single and sexual woman. Do
you think the show was a pre-cursor to programming today?

I think “Sex and the City” was very specifically about a female
voice and a sexually-empowered woman who was also going to be
likable and not threatening. One thing that I think Sarah Jessica
Parker brought to the role was her sense of humor. Carrie was a very
flawed character in many ways, and the audience was always on a
journey with her, and I think her flaws made her more relatable.

Do you remember Sarah Jessica Parker’s audition?

After having written the pilot, I just thought she would be perfect
actress for it. I was a big fan of her work. She was funny and
always seemed so smart. As an actress, I thought she would be very
believable as this writer, and I thought she had great comedy chops,
so that combination felt to be the perfect fit. We had lunch in New
York and I’m sure she was thinking, “Who is this guy? What is this
script?” [laughing] But she liked the script. She was primarily a
film actress so it was a big leap to commit to doing a TV series,
but the fact that it was going to be on HBO made a difference.

So she never formally auditioned?

She did not audition. We just had a meeting.

Did you have to talk her into it?

I was persuasive. I tried to be charming [laughing]. I think she
said that Matthew [Broderick] liked the script, so I thought, “Okay,
that’s good. That’s a big plus.” I just knew in my heart that she
was the right person for the role and was the only person in my
mind.

So Sarah Jessica Parker was always your first choice to play Carrie?

Absolutely.

What do you remember about casting Kristin Davis?

I worked with her on “Melrose Place,” and I cast her on “Melrose
Place.” I knew Kristin a little bit from working with her obviously,
and I loved the character that she played on “Melrose Place,” but I
also saw a different side of Kristin and I knew she could do this
and bring some of herself to this role, so I just felt that she was
completely right for it, having had the advantage of working with
her a bit. I just felt she was going to bring some of herself to the
role of Charlotte.

Did she read for the role?

I don’t really remember Kristin reading for it. I’m not sure if she
read for it or not because I knew her. I don’t really recall her
auditioning because I just recalled that she felt like the right
person for me.

How about Cynthia Nixon’s audition?

Cynthia, I think, read in New York. She did read. Cynthia was really
a legend as a stage actress — a theater actor in New York. Her
reading was fantastic. It took me a while to realize that she wasn’t
Miranda because she was so in the role, and I didn’t know her
before, so I thought, “She must really be like this character.”

What do you think about Cynthia Nixon running for governor?

She’s always been extremely smart and committed to local politics
and very passionate about so many issues that are important to her,
so I think it’s amazing and it’s not totally out of left field.

Tell me about Kim Cattrall’s audition.

Kim initially didn’t want to do it. She had to be very persuaded to
come in and read for it, and actually, we were just about to cast
another actress, and at the eleventh hour, we had lunch and Kim
agreed to come in and read for the role for HBO, and of course, she
was fantastic. It was one of those situations where we just had to
make the change [from another actress].

It’s really hard to imagine any other actresses in these roles.

Casting is so much luck. The right people have to be available at
the right time, and I feel like the cast, you just can’t imagine
anyone else in these roles, and it’s just part of the magic of what
made the show work — these four women.

Plans fell through for a third film, reportedly because of some
casting issues. Can you clear up anything that happened?

I would say I have about as much information on a third movie as you
do, so I have nothing to add to that.

Would you want there to be a third movie?

I think if it was the right story and everybody was in a space to
come back and do it, of course. Absolutely. If it’s “Sex and the
City” — the show that people connected to — then yes. If it’s
something else, then no. But I really have nothing to add to the
conversation about [the third movie].

We’re in the age of TV reboots and revivals. Would you ever be
interested in doing a TV reboot?

I think a reboot of “Sex and the City” with a different cast, I’m
not sure what that would be. But a reboot with the original cast,
100%. I’m there for that. I would love to be a part of that.
Absolutely. If everybody comes back for that, that would be
wonderful. I think “Will & Grace” has done it brilliantly, and
there’s the model for it.

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