Kristin Davis Remembers Hiring Adult Film Stars for Season 1’s Sex Scenes in SATC
Sex was a central theme on Sex and the City, but that doesn’t imply that Kristin Davis and her co-stars weren’t surprised by some of the scenarios they encountered.
Davis, who portrayed Charlotte York on the HBO series for six seasons, reminisced about the first season being packed with eye-opening experiences. While revisiting season 1, episode 6 for her “Are You a Charlotte?” podcast, Davis, 60, reflected on Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Ted’s (David Aaron Baker) fleeting romance.
“She stumbles upon a porn magazine about spanking, and she’s somewhat annoyed, which is amusing considering she’s Miranda,” Davis shared with her listeners on the Sunday, March 16 episode, adding, “Spanking might seem rather mild in today’s context [but] she has to discuss it with Carrie [Bradshaw].”
Davis detailed how, in the episode, Miranda finds a spanking video and makes Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) watch it. This moment is merely a glimpse into the kinks that the SATC ladies encounter.
“Carrie has already witnessed the modelizer having sex [and] secretly filming the models… and then she has to casually smoke a cigarette like it’s no big deal,” Davis explained. “And now we have Miranda with this spanking video.”
The actress revealed that the spanking video leads to an even more memorable scene in the series.
“Soon, we will all be watching the people in the window,” Davis mentioned, asking her guest star Christine Taylor, “Do you recall when we all turned our heads sideways to watch people having sex?”
Charlotte, Miranda, Carrie, and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) tilting their heads in astonishment while viewing the video was featured in teasers and trailers for the show at the time. However, that scene held a different significance for Davis.
“We actually hired two porn actors for that,” she recalled. “At the time, we were somewhat traumatized by it.”
Davis added that now she thinks, “more power to them,” but at that time, the show’s sexual themes were quite novel.
“It certainly became a theme in the beginning,” she said regarding the outrageous sexual acts showcased on the show. “I suppose it makes sense since Carrie is trying to explore relationships and sex and [learn] what do people enjoy? What do people do?”
While Davis admitted to being “semi-traumatized” by watching porn stars, she previously mentioned that her least favorite SATC storyline didn’t even revolve around sex.
During the March 13 episode of her podcast, Davis expressed her discontent with the storyline in which Charlotte and her husband, Harry (Evan Handler), suffer from food poisoning during season 6.
“I truly despised that storyline,” Davis shared on the podcast, disclosing her attempts to persuade the writers to eliminate the scene that depicted the couple getting sick at home on the bathroom floor after a romantic evening. “I approached Elisa Zuritsky and Julia Rottenberg [the episode’s writers] and asked, ‘Please, do we really have to include this? Why?’”
Her requests went unheeded, as the writers believed it provided a humorous twist for the prim Charlotte. “They insisted, ‘It’s so funny,’” Davis recounted. “I believe it was inspired by a story where someone traveled to France and had a similar incident with their rich cheeses, which we’re unaccustomed to here.”
Notably, she still did not “like” the food poisoning storyline. “I really didn’t want to be on the bathroom floor with Evan in stained T-shirts. Ick.”
Despite a few awkward moments, Davis remained involved in SATC during its original run from 1998 to 2004. She reprised her role in the 2008 Sex and the City movie and its 2010 sequel, Sex and the City 2.
Davis reconnected with both Parker, 59, and Nixon, 58, in 2021 for the Max spinoff And Just Like That … but Cattrall, 68, did not return as a full-time cast member.
