Kirstin Davis opened up about the bizarre rules that she and her costars had to observe when they were working on Sex And The City.
The 60-year-old actress delved into the ‘strange, cult-type’ requirements on Monday’s episode of her podcast Are You A Charlotte?, which featured the Emmy-winning writer Jenny Bicks, who wrote for Sex And The City.
During the chat, Kristin — who reprised her role as Charlotte York on HBO‘s And Just Like That — explained how the series’ producers got progressively more restrictive about what she and her costars Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall were allowed to wear on screen.
Kristin — who also spoke about being forced to do nude scenes — got on the topic after talking about how she worried about her skirt riding up as she rewatched episode eight of the first season, which led her to a digression about wearing pantyhose.
‘Pat had not eradicated the pantyhose yet,’ Kristin joked, referring to the show’s writer, director and executive producer Michael Patrick King, who also went on to direct the two feature film sequels.
‘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,’ the actress admitted.
‘No scrunchies. No banana clips,’ she added.
Jenny then teased Kristin about whether she felt ‘shame’ whenever she would wear a banana clip outside of the show.
The actress joked that she still worried about using one after taking a shower, even though ‘no one’s gonna see me.’
She emphasized that the rules were ‘little things’ that ‘came slowly’ to the show.
‘They weren’t all in the beginning,’ she added. ‘No hose unless they were fishnet. We went through a whole fishnet phase. If you could find double fishnets that was great. If you could find nude double fishnets even better.’
Kristin also revealed that there was a ‘heel-height situation,’ in which the actresses were required to wear towering heels when on screen.She complained that the change took her ‘a while to get on board with’ as she struggled to walk in such over-the-top heels.
‘Part of the problem is you can blame your costar Sarah Jessica Parker because she could run in those things,’ Jenny added. ‘She made it look so easy.’
Kristin chimed in that the rest of the cast ‘always had to live up’ to Sarah, who led the series as Carrie Bradshaw.
The rules were so detailed to list what G-strings the women were allowed to wear, and they were required to wear fashionable coats that were not ‘functional.’
‘We could go down the list of approved brands and not approved brands. There was a lot,’ she said.
Kristin also noted that the actresses were forbidden from keeping any of the wardrobe, as much of it was rented from high-profile fashion houses who might have refused to give them such a deal in the future if the clothes weren’t returned.
Elsewhere in the podcast, Kristin admitted that she ‘didn’t want to’ expose her chest in an episode from the fifth season.
She described filming the scene as ‘mortifying’ while accusing showrunner Michael Patrick King of pressuring her into stripping.She described filming the scene as ‘mortifying’ while accusing showrunner Michael Patrick King of pressuring her into stripping.I was like, ‘Uh, I’m trying to do something here without feeling self-conscious. Could you possibly move all those guys?’ It’s crazy back then what went on.
‘Even in a situation where you theoretically did have so much power, all that stuff was still able to happen and you had to be the bad guy and be like, ‘They can’t smoke cigars literally in my eye line.’
Despite the challenges, the actress called the mikveh scene ‘gorgeous, romantic perfection’ and said she was ‘so happy’ she did
She joked: ‘I was so stressed… (but) I should have just been running through town with my shirt off.’
The actress said earlier a storyline involving her alter ego and on-screen husband Harry, played by Evan Handler, getting food poisoning was one she begged the writers to cut.
Recalling the plot – which saw the two characters gearing up to enjoy a variety of French cheeses before they ended up on the bathroom floor after falling ill – Kristin said on the latest episode of her ‘Are You a Charlotte?’ podcast: ‘I just hated that storyline so much.
‘I went to Elisa Zuritsky and Julia Rottenberg [the writers of the episode] and said, ‘Please, do we have to do this? Why?’
‘They were like, ‘It’s so funny.
‘I think it was based on a story where someone went to France and had a similar experience with their decadent cheeses, which we’re not used to here.
‘I didn’t like that. I didn’t want to lay on the floor of the bathroom with Evan in stained T-shirts. Ick.’