Sarah Jessica Parker Hated the Fourth Wall Breaks in Sex And The City

Last year, when Sarah Jessica Parker first appeared on Kristin Davis’s podcast, Are You A Charlotte?, she revealed that she tried to quit Sex and the City after the pilot was picked up because she didn’t want to be on television—It was as if hearing Michelangelo say he never wanted to be an sculptor, or Hillary Duff saying she never wanted to release her iconic early 2000s tween clothing line, Stuff by Hillary. Thankfully, Parker was persuaded to stay and deliver six of the greatest seasons of television ever bestowed upon the HBO gods.

And now, in another appearance on Are You A Charlotte?, we’re learning that SJP played another major role in the show’s success–ending those weird fourth-wall breaks from the first few episodes. If you recall, during the first season, the cast would frequently speak directly to the camera, and some scenes were montaged with random people on the street sharing anecdotes tied to whatever Carrie Bradshaw was discussing with the girls or writing about in her column. It was jarring. 

“It felt like Sesame Street,” Parker told Davis. “Like, one of these things is not like the other.” 

“It was very strange because you had to take yourself out of the scene and talk to a mysterious person in the camera, but yet you were talking to yourself,” Davis said. 

“The talking to the camera for me felt really problematic because I think, as I said at the time, it’s extremely hard to do well,” Parker added. “My husband did it in a movie, and he did it extremely well, and it felt like a kind of device that suited that movie so perfectly.” (I suppose it would be hard to outdo Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). “But if the thrust of our show, as I understood it at that time, were these kinds of intimacies in conversation and the necessity of these friendships, and the fact that it was a column.” The bit didn’t make it past the first season, for good reason, and Davis credited Parker for speaking to creator Darren Criss with a “calm power,” and persuading him to cut the gag.

“So I think my argument at the time was, I think it’s hurting what you’re really trying to do, which is the thing that matters most to you, and I don’t think I’m doing it well, which is also problematic, and it’s not gonna be good,” Parker concluded, “I think it’s gonna hurt the show.” 

The two agreed that the fourth-wall breaks had the endearing quality of a new show on a new network still figuring itself out, with a creative team experimenting in real time. But ultimately, we have SJP’s “calm power” of persuasion to thank for helping the show find its footing, with the help, of course, of Manolo Blahniks.