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Kristin Davis is dishing on feeling pressured to film a very public nude scene.
From long-standing feuds to the more recent exercise bike controversy in the revival (And Just Like That is a revival, not a reboot), Sex And The City has been a hot topic for decades.
Behind the scenes, Davis recalls, there were “cult-type” rules on how the cast could dress on camera. New items kept getting banned.
And not every nude scene felt the same to film, she explains, describing some very uncomfortable experiences.
Kristin Davis was ‘forced’ to flash the camera
On the Monday, March 31 episode of her Are You a Charlotte? podcast, Kristin Davis recalled the Sex and the City showrunner pushing her to bare her breast on camera for the Season 5 premiere.
“Michael Patrick [King] forced me to do it,” she described. “He kept telling me, ‘It’ll be fine. It’ll be great.’”
Davis admitted: “And it is. But we were in a restaurant. There were people everywhere.”
In Season 6, Davis had her first completely nude moment on screen. It was challenging, but “it was a very, very integral part of the storyline.”
Specifically, it involved Charlotte York as she converted to Judaism, stepping into a mikveh bath. (This purification ritual involves elements that predate Judaism itself, and one of the purposes is for conversion)
“Because it wasn’t sexual,” she explained, “it’s much easier to have some nudity in a non-sexual way in a spiritual way.”
This ‘SATC’ set should have been less unnerving
This was also a much less public venue — at least, in theory. But Davis described “the director and the [director of photography] and the ‘video village’ set up — because the [assistant director] let it happen — where I had to walk, and they were smoking cigars.”
She ended up having to confront the Assistant Director. “I was like, ‘Uh, I’m trying to do something here without feeling self-conscious. Could you possibly move all those guys?’” she recalled.
Davis then remarked: “It’s crazy back then what went on.” (Just for the record, plenty of shows had properly closed sets for nude scenes years before Sex and the City premiered)
“Even in a situation where you theoretically did have so much power, all that stuff was still able to happen,” Davis spelled out.
She added: “And you had to be the bad guy and be like, ‘They can’t smoke cigars literally in my eye line.’”
Still, she emphasized that the scene was “gorgeous, romantic perfection.” And she affirmed that she feels “so happy” that she did it.
When she wore clothes (which was most of the time), there were ‘cult-type’ limits
Additionally, Davis spoke about restrictions on their on-screen wardrobe. “I remember there were elements — and this is probably something I shouldn’t say — there were strange, cult-type elements about being in that cast where there were like some rules,” she characterized.
She listed things like scrunchies, banana clips, hose (except for fishnets), that received bans. They had to wear towering heels — all to keep up with the fashion of Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw.
“We could go down the list of approved brands and not approved brands. There was a lot,” Davis summarized. It sounds like it!
