Sex And The City: Carrie Could Have Been Played By Two Other Actresses
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It's hard to imagine anyone other than Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City", but the HBO hit almost had a very different leading lady. While Parker made the role of the fashionable New York writer her own, two of her eventual co-stars also auditioned for the part 25 years ago.
In an interview with the "And Just Like That ... The Writer's Room" podcast, Kristin Davis revealed that she was asked to read for the Carrie Bradshaw role and that she actually had to tell series creator Darren Star that she was wrong for the part. Davis noted that in the original script, Carrie was totally rough around the edges and she knew she couldn't play such a character. She also pointed to a line in the pilot that described Carrie as an unlikely combination of Heather Locklear and Dorothy Parker. "And I was like, 'That is adorable, but I can't play that part. Like, what [are] you thinking?'" Davis recalled. She instead petitioned for the role of art gallery guru Charlotte York after telling Star that she related to that character more.
Eventual SATC star Cynthia Nixon revealed that she also read for the lead role as Carrie but was promptly rejected. "I auditioned and they were like, 'Yeah, not so much,'" Nixon said on the podcast. Months later, she officially landed the life-changing role of lawyer Miranda Hobbes.
In the end, Kim Cattrall rounded out the cast as Samantha Jones for the show about four Cosmo-drinking New York friends looking for love, usually in all the wrong places.
Other TV stars didn't make the cut as Carrie Bradshaw
Darren Star found his winning "Sex and the City" combination with Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and Kim Cattrall, but it wasn't without a lot of auditioning. In fact, Parker wasn't a complete shoo-in for the Manolo-wearing Carrie character.
In an interview on "Live With Kelly and Ryan," Mädchen Amick claimed that after she starred in Star's CBS primetime soap "Central Park West," she was offered a spinoff for her character, Carrie Fairchild, which ultimately became "Sex and the City." "I got the phone call, and I got the offer," she said. Amick told Page Six she turned down the role to raise her kids. "I was offered 'Sex and the City' because it was a spin-off from a character I played on 'Central Park West,'" she said. "My kids were so young I didn't feel like I could do another hour show." While she noted that, in hindsight, she should have taken "SATC," she admitted Parker nailed the role.
Lisa Edelstein was also given a "Sex and the City" contract before Parker committed to the show. In a 2016 interview with "Access," the "House" star revealed the part would have been hers had Parker turned it down. "I was either going to do it or not. It all depended on whether she said yes," Edelstein revealed. "My contract was complete. I was waiting."
Star confirmed Edelstein's story in a Kindle Singles interview in which he revealed if Parker turned down the role as Carrie, he would have moved forward with Edelstein instead.