June 29, 2026
The writing is on the wall with Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky... (S4 E15 "Change Of A Dress" )
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RSS Feed “If you don’t want to marry me right now, you’ll never want to marry me…”Ouch…..Carrie and Aidan breakup …again.
Writers Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky join Kristin, to share everything about the heartbreaker they wrote.
The necklace ring, the tap dancing, staying up all night to rewrite a certain scene…
The breakup was originally supposed to take place somewhere else, the crazy things they made Kristin do, and the costume she still has.
The writers tell all.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte?
00:00:08
Speaker 2: Welcome to Are You a Charlotte?
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Today we have another episode with the incredible Julie Rottenberg and Lisa Sariski. We are now talking about four fifteen Change of Address, which was the second script they wrote after My Mother Board Myself. Two absolutely incredible episodes. I need to say at the top, it's a joy.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: Again, how incredibly lucky we were that we got those scripts.
00:00:37
Speaker 2: I mean, beyond beyond.
00:00:38
Speaker 1: But that's because you were amazing, Okay, And this episode directed by the incredible Alan.
00:00:43
Speaker 2: Taylor, so good, so good.
00:00:46
Speaker 3: Okay, So up now setting like watching it again? Well you have to remember, like Siera, Jesica and John Corbett really loved working together and they were so so the fact that this was the end of them or so we.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: Thought, right, Can I say, do you remember also when he left us when.
00:01:10
Speaker 3: Because we weren't there, we were we were just watching it. Do you not.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Remember him crying at the read through?
00:01:17
Speaker 3: Well?
00:01:18
Speaker 1: Wait, which one three of Sorry, just like that that.
00:01:24
Speaker 2: I loved all the way to the president.
00:01:27
Speaker 4: Left many times.
00:01:28
Speaker 1: I upset, I know, right, but I just love that he has that depth of feelings and he I cannot yet talk him into being on the podcast. So I'm just yes, if you run into please please put in a word.
00:01:43
Speaker 2: Okay, I know.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: Him.
00:01:47
Speaker 4: He just wants to he wants to be asked again.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: No, no, no, He's been begged for literally hours okay, totally hours. But what I want to say, what I want to represent here, because I feel like it's important since we don't have his own voice, is the depth of feeling that he brings to everything that he does, and how much we love him, and how much he loves us back, and how every time have we written him out he cries.
00:02:09
Speaker 3: It's like this.
00:02:11
Speaker 4: He brings such authenticity to it.
00:02:13
Speaker 3: I mean he really Yeah, and that scene will rip your heart out there, by the way, that scene Okay, so the episode this is where Carrie and Aiden they're engaged, but she's wearing the ring around her neck. Wait, how did that happen? I need to know, golly well, just to recap in case.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
00:02:33
Speaker 3: Not On the four o eight podcast, we were using this part of my life that was hard, which was that I was with someone I really loved and I thought I wanted to be with forever. But I did not want to get married. He did want to get married. It was very upsetting and hard and something I was wrestling with for many years. As Alisa knows, I should mention, he is now my husband. So it all worked out.
00:03:00
Speaker 2: Everyone ends fine.
00:03:02
Speaker 3: But that was a moment in time when I felt very alone in feeling that way as a woman, especially and seeing lots of pictures on TV and in the movies of women desperate to get married and and the man proposing and the woman saying yes. So we decided to put all of that, I should say, Michael Patrick King decided to put all of that into this relationship for Carrie and the ring around her neck? Do you remember that?
00:03:29
Speaker 4: I wish I could remember. I feel like it might have been a Michael.
00:03:35
Speaker 2: It was like of her not doing her own things.
00:03:40
Speaker 3: Susan Sharon shows up. Is that what the kids are doing? Right? Which is so.
00:03:49
Speaker 4: Good?
00:03:52
Speaker 3: Yeah that I have to say, Alan Taylor, oh my god, Chef's kiss like that whole, that whole seeing Lisa and I were just talking about seeing Miranda and Carrie that walk and talk down the street and Miranda faking a sonogram because everyone's so excited I think that was another thing. And the irony is we didn't have kids at the time, But this idea of what you're supposed to feel like as a woman, as an expectant mother and not feeling that, and how do you bridge the divide? Is it me? Is it society? But that walk and talk of them and then going into the wedding shop was really.
00:04:38
Speaker 4: I know, I was saying, I haven't watched that episode in so many years. I haven't watched the series in a long time, so going back and watching it, I didn't even remember. All I remembered was Carrie had an anxiety attack wearing a wedding ring. But I did not, for some reason, remember that the whole thing was a joke and that Miranda was going to also try on like that, that she was going to also try on a wedding dress. Like I completely blocked.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: That out, and I have in my mind the visual image of them both there, like it was so creative for that.
00:05:18
Speaker 3: And it was by the way that the sun was going down and we're about to lose the lights in that they come into the Bridle Place on the upper West Side, and how great is that? I was sending her name that actress who is the Bridle shop uh you know owner. But it was getting really late and we were about to lose the light and we had to shoot that scene. We were like, we need that scene. It was like could we cut the scene? Could we cut to them? And so watching it again now, it just had you feel the stress. Great but great energy. Yes, you got to get this scene in.
00:05:54
Speaker 2: Well, sometimes that helps when we got to get the start. It's not fun.
00:06:00
Speaker 3: I'm too much of a worrier.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: Like freak me out, It's true, but it's something about the energy of that then enlivens the scene.
00:06:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, some energy right, but yeah.
00:06:13
Speaker 3: So that was one of these scripts that was both it felt very personal and painful and another perfect example of a scene that we had set. We pictured that last fight that they have. They're in these gorgeous black and white We pictured that on a divey street down in like.
00:06:35
Speaker 4: Industrial like I just wanted to And.
00:06:38
Speaker 3: The idea was they would look gorgeous in their fancy black and white form, but be on a gross street in New York, just.
00:06:46
Speaker 4: To show that contrast.
00:06:48
Speaker 3: Right, And Alan fell in Alan Taylor, who directed the episode, fell in love with the Fountain, which is.
00:06:55
Speaker 4: No longer they are. It's no longer Columbus circles there, but it's not a fountain.
00:07:01
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought about that, is it since they built that building.
00:07:05
Speaker 4: Just a monument.
00:07:08
Speaker 2: I think it's when they did the building though, you know there used to not be that big.
00:07:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, but this is a perfect example of where like that. That was the idea was in the script and we were like, it's got to.
00:07:19
Speaker 4: Be on a grungy right, and he's like, I want a beautiful and in the.
00:07:27
Speaker 3: End and like, kudos to Michael, he was like, look, he really wants he really wants this beautiful shot. And of course now it's such an iconic, right, and it's so cinematics but beautiful.
00:07:40
Speaker 1: As an actor, I always think like, I can't believe they did this with the sound.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was hard.
00:07:46
Speaker 3: That was hard. By the way, we shot that scene the same day we did your tap dancing with Andre to Shields. No way, we were I remember all I remember about that, very invested in the tap dancing.
00:08:00
Speaker 4: You ever tapped?
00:08:01
Speaker 2: I never, no, No.
00:08:02
Speaker 1: As a child, I think I took tap dancing because my parents made me take all the things, right, but I hated it and I took it, maybe just the shortest amount of period of all the dance, right, because I love the others.
00:08:13
Speaker 2: I haven't took modern bizarre.
00:08:16
Speaker 4: And I need to see that.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: There's no there's no maybe I have a picture with the tuto or whatever.
00:08:23
Speaker 3: I don't know. Valleri Kristen did for us. By the way, thank you to this day. I tapped it.
00:08:31
Speaker 4: Okay, I just want to say so, yes, yes, you've never seen Julie tap dance on set. No, that's what she does when she's liker.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, okay, yes, and you learned for us, of course I did. We were so panicked whenever we saw anything that said dance. Do you remember how we would call in the choreographers.
00:08:52
Speaker 4: Which is which is more stressful for you, dance or Hebrew prayers?
00:08:58
Speaker 3: We did because we foisted both of those.
00:09:04
Speaker 4: Thank God for you guys.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: Thank God for you guys, Charlotte. They did alo present.
00:09:13
Speaker 3: Know more prayers, just so you know, than like many of my Jewish relatives, my deepest unconscious okay, because as soon as they're over.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: They just like evaporate or whatever. So if I hear someone else, I'm like, okay, yeah, I know.
00:09:25
Speaker 4: That the candle.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I know that.
00:09:29
Speaker 1: But the first time when I did it for Harry, which we haven't gotten to it, but everyone listening knows when I first time, when I had to do the whole dinner and then he's watching the game and I'm mad.
00:09:38
Speaker 2: Yes, that was really hard because I was mad.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: I remember, yes, And also I'd had multiple coaches then who had different pain.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: Lind we a lot of Jews.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: We took care of that because then they came they.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: Were like that fired the Jewish.
00:09:58
Speaker 4: I remember that, remember, and.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: Very stressful and that you had me doing that, but it amazing. I still have that outfit though in my closet.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you and the flowers. By the way, that was actually from uh. I. I had to take swimming at Columbia.
00:10:19
Speaker 2: I kid you not.
00:10:19
Speaker 3: Everyone had to take swim and I had. I was in flowers of flowers bathing suit, and I just remember the guy going you.
00:10:25
Speaker 2: And the flowers.
00:10:27
Speaker 4: I remember I had forgotten you, and I want to give such so I'll just say like I had. I knew that Charlotte was going to tap dance, but I had forgotten the deeper story, which was that you didn't that Charlotte didn't want to. She wanted to skip over the grief about the divorce, right, like, I just want to I'm just keeping myself busy and I'm learning new things.
00:10:55
Speaker 2: Very Charlotte also, what's interesting to me about it?
00:11:09
Speaker 1: And I don't know what was going on the writer's room about this, but I wonder if you guys remember anything. So you know how third season is when we get Kyle, and he was only supposed to be a short amount of time, and he was supposed to be the boring husband that no one wanted to talk to. But he was Kyle, so obviously I wasn't that exactly and we wanted to keep him. Remember in the third season, we're up in Connecticut. He's playing tennis without his shirt, and I'm.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Like, I just think we should separate back in the city.
00:11:35
Speaker 1: But then I also don't feel the feelings, do you know what I mean? I go back, I'm at the coffee shop. I'm like, we're separated. Rewatching, I was like, wow, I'm not feeling the feelings. But I don't know if I'm not feeling the feelings because it's not actually done or you know.
00:11:51
Speaker 4: It's a very interesting thing that we weren't on three.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: So but when you started season four, what I will.
00:11:59
Speaker 4: I don't want to. I don't want to like out any writer who was in here, but there you can do. There was a writer who I think was going She was going through a breakup and did not want to feel the feelings and she just wanted to keep going and just get back out there and date and just be happy. And why do I have to be sad about it?
00:12:23
Speaker 2: Interesting? I mean, it's very Charlotte. It makes perfect sense.
00:12:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And I also think Charlotte's whole thing is like if I want something, I'm going to pursue it, and I'm going to do it and I'm going to make it happen, right, So, like I don't know. When I was watching it back, I was like, I don't know where the moment is that she actually gives up, right, because obviously her and Trage back together, do you know what I mean? And she tries and because the sex starts happening, thank god, it's confusing, but she's and then she comes with her list at one point do you remember this? But she's like, I'm trying with my list and you're distracting me by kissing me. You know, she she does her best at where she is in life at that time, right with the chemistry is there and the picture perfectness is there, right, and she's going to keep trying right and then obviously in the end it still doesn't.
00:13:10
Speaker 2: So it's interesting to look back on it.
00:13:12
Speaker 1: I also just don't know personally right, because you have to always think about, well, where was I personally?
00:13:19
Speaker 2: I was nowhere near all this stuff.
00:13:21
Speaker 1: And I remember when we start with the fertility thing, I didn't even know people who were doing this please were like.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: I mean, our whole thing having gone through all that fertility how many years later, was like, I can't believe we were We couldn't like we wish we right.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: But I do think based on fans talking to me, that we did it justice because people said we did.
00:13:44
Speaker 3: Deal a lot of people.
00:13:45
Speaker 4: We didn't know enough people.
00:13:46
Speaker 3: But yes, but this episode, back to the table we were talking about in the other episode, Yeah, that episode had multiple scenes that took place in the apartment next door we had written. You remember, we had a whole scene where Aiden had built he was building her shelves and he said, can you reach this? We wanted to make sure like the character wanted to make sure we had a whole scene in there. After the table read, we did another like we went back to Michael's. We had to do like major surgery, like a real rething. You remember. It was all around their breakup and how we were going to build to that and getting to do you hate me? And and how just was that passive aggressive? And after that long writer's meeting, after the table read at Michael's house, we went for dinner at Pasties in the meatpacking district. We're having a dinner, We're talking more about the episode and what it's going to need. And then I remember at the end of the dinner, Michael said to us, Okay, so we have a production meeting tomorrow at nine am. You'll need to have a draft by then. But ever stayed up all night. I don't remember, oh my, and I remember I went back we both lived in Brooklyn. I went back to my house at like five in the morning and was doing like the final touches, and I remember Michael Eric Michael's just have to get that in now. And of course I was doing like last minute things on it, and it was like, just send it, send it. I literally came in for a production meeting and like hadn't slept and we were like vibrating, Oh my god. And then you watch it and it's like, how could it have been any other way? All those scenes, by the way, and poor Malfie, John Malfie, the amazing John Malfie had like built the most beautiful that apartment that we got. And then the other crazy thing that that people might not know is the end of that episode when she says she crawls into bed on the other the other permit. She says, that was the only night we would ever sleep on the other side of the wall, which to us meant it's over. People who saw it at HBO in post were like, that's unclear. It sounds like they made up that that was the only night that they would that.
00:16:06
Speaker 2: Now we're going to be together.
00:16:07
Speaker 3: So we had to add and it was that season we broke up right after nine to eleven, and they dropped those last few, those last six I think, and we had to add a voiceover saying the next day Aiden moved out, And that was like a big debate were we going to add that voiceover?
00:16:25
Speaker 2: Weren't we?
00:16:26
Speaker 3: And I remember like being very like literally watching it on TV and being like, did they add that voiceover? Isn't that crazy?
00:16:33
Speaker 2: That is crazy?
00:16:35
Speaker 1: So I'm going to take a little leap here just because we have not yet discussed for Richard and Samantha. We literally haven't said his name yet. I don't think yeah, okay, maybe we met him.
00:16:50
Speaker 2: We did meet him.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: We didn't meet him when she Yeah, James remark, we met him when she goes to get the job and she doesn't get the job because she slept this architect, right, and he's like, yeah, that's not gonna work for me. And we talked about how that would never happen now hopefully hopefully not in such an unapologetic way, right, right, But so can we talk about Samantha getting into a relationship, like what was their stress about that?
00:17:17
Speaker 4: I mean, we all felt like she was ready, she.
00:17:20
Speaker 2: Got it because we had to shown a thing, which is bizarre.
00:17:25
Speaker 4: Just frankly, Yeah, it wasn't.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: For her, No, well it's not.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: It's so obviously not for her because she doesn't want to talk or anything, right, I.
00:17:33
Speaker 3: Mean much in a way that you're saying we hopefully deepen these characters in this season. We all felt like Samantha is ready for something more and let's see, let's see if we can do it. And right there, first we have to find an actor who right that her and he was incredible, James remark, right, And then we had to decide like, okay, are we doing this, Let's see what would Samantha be like in a relationship? God, it sort of toggling between being role not wanting to be vulnerable and feeling insecure and reading this stuff about you know, all the.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: Page big stuff.
00:18:12
Speaker 4: Right.
00:18:13
Speaker 1: How much was that was that like in my mind when I think back to this time in our lives, Right, this is when I felt, at least that you literally could not be in a restaurant and have a conversation because whatever you said would end up in the papers, right, I mean yeah, so I almost said, like, I don't know if you guys felt that way, but you probably didn't.
00:18:36
Speaker 2: But you know, we had code names if you were just trying to talk about your day. I'm okay, everyone should have it so much we can't say what they are because then they're ruined me.
00:18:55
Speaker 3: You know.
00:18:55
Speaker 2: It's stress.
00:18:56
Speaker 1: It was stress like because we were such a part of new work, right, and that was a great thing of course, but it was so much pressure, like you couldn't even just say, like, we spent so many hours at work. Then I'd be like Kristen Davis, right, do you think that went into these types of like sometimes I feel like it's informed by the publicisty.
00:19:18
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well. I also an early job for me was I did work at the New York Post in the mid nineties, four old before teaming up with Julie Wow And I used to where I sat. I was on the features desk, which is mostly entertainment, but we were ten feet away from Page six reporters. So it was like a front row seat to the most incredible show because back then that was that was the gossip source. I mean that was one of like three or four gossip sources, unlike today. Oh yeah, so yeah, so that was a fun thing for me to.
00:20:05
Speaker 2: Sort of fun was a composite of the.
00:20:10
Speaker 4: Worked at Page six and who were just colorful and hilarious and interesting. You know.
00:20:16
Speaker 2: So that's where I got it, got it, got it, got it. Can I tell you guys?
00:20:31
Speaker 1: The sad, sad news is that we have to end, which is really horrible because too much fun, it's so much forever While you're here because we're going to have to have you back, because now you're now your names are on the script, and I can have you whenever I want.
00:20:44
Speaker 2: You, which is all the time. Okay, all the time. But I have pressing questions. Sure, Julie, mm hmmm, are you a Charlotte?
00:20:57
Speaker 3: I seen that coming. Well, the truth is on Sex and the City. When we were writing that series, I would never have said I was a Charlotte. I would have said I was a Miranda. Basically, I'm Miranda, obviously with some Carrie, but basically a Miranda. But all these years later, and just like that, I realized I really am now a Charlotte. I am a mom, and I have this marriage and these kids, and so many of my current issues and adventures fit more for Charlotte. So I feel like either I've evolved or devolved or changed sure in all the ways.
00:21:37
Speaker 2: Love it well. So Charlotte has changed. Yes, hopefully we all do. Yes, And Alisa, I kind of know.
00:21:43
Speaker 1: But tell me.
00:21:48
Speaker 4: My husband is also bald Charlotte. No, I'm very much a charge. I mean, I think I definitely had back in Sex in the City days, I might have had a little Charlotte shame, like, oh, I don't want to be like, oh I'm not so yeah. So I was never like a rules girl, like there are things that I watch, you know, not every part of char course, but in a word, yes, I love it.
00:22:17
Speaker 3: I love it so And now that you put it that way, I realized like thank you notes, like I was raised to, like you write a thank you note that under penalty of death, and that is such a Charlotte thing.
00:22:27
Speaker 1: Definitely you always had that. And also you're very perfectionistic. Yeah I'm very Charlotte, I mean, but but Marine is also very overachieving, right, So that's you're kind of connect lead.
00:22:39
Speaker 3: They bleed into it, Yeah, they do.
00:22:42
Speaker 1: And I also think that, you know, because of the trajectory that we've had together, you know, for all of these many years, time on, time off doesn't really matter, right, the fact that we've gotten to continue together and that you guys were such a huge, huge part of it.
00:22:56
Speaker 2: Just like that, I'm so grateful to.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: You and the way that you allow Charlotte to evolve and deepen and shift. And someone said to me the other day, like, Charlotte, you're so strong and then just like that, and I was like, oh, Wow, they said, did they say that too?
00:23:12
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, no one ever said that to me.
00:23:14
Speaker 1: I mean, Michael said to me, you can't change too much because I need all the change to be around you, and I need you to like hold the.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: Center, are like the found Thank you babe?
00:23:26
Speaker 3: What's the word, like the the hub of Yeah, you have to be strong like when people are falling apart around you.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: Thank you? And that was always true when you look back.
00:23:36
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing too is that, like when we started, and I don't know if this was me or her or both, so much insecurities, right, Like I had so many insecurities personally, but also Charlotte because the rest are cool and she's not cool, Like that's kind of a fundamental thing about her. She's earnest and she's full of feeling, and she has.
00:23:56
Speaker 2: These goals and they're not the cool goal.
00:23:58
Speaker 4: Yes, you know what I mean.
00:24:00
Speaker 2: You don't have as much armor as no armor, basically, you know what I'm saying. And that's true for me as well. Right, So that's where we bleed.
00:24:09
Speaker 1: But also like the first Emmys, which was such a wonderful, you know, surprise, wonderful, incredible thing, and I had no stylist, and I just went around town and during ittings by myself, and I had a stack of polaroids and I would take them to different people in my life, like my publicists, my publicists boss, my manager, my manager's boss at the time, my agents.
00:24:29
Speaker 2: Everyone had different opinions.
00:24:30
Speaker 1: And one of the things that all the men in the group would say is, you have to wear something very sexy, because you are completely unsexy.
00:24:38
Speaker 2: On that show. You're the unsexy one.
00:24:40
Speaker 3: You are the prude.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: Can you believe that that's so wrong?
00:24:44
Speaker 1: But I had really forgotten that until I was thinking about the same the day, but because we were a show called Sex.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: And the City.
00:24:50
Speaker 1: But we had Samantha, who's the you know, no fear, no rules, powerful right, and then we had Charlotte, who was in in some ways presented as the prudish one in the beginning but not actually right.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: And then time goes on.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: But you forget about the beginnings, you know, Like they wanted me to wear this crazy dress that Mariah Carey ended up wearing, which is why I didn't wear it. That was like a cutout Michael Cores, where like your breasts are barely in I have a polaroid of it. I'm going to put it on the air as I need your pictures. I need your pictures of the babys okay, because they're so cute, but anyway, just it's so funny to think of the ideas that we had at the beginning and how things.
00:25:33
Speaker 2: Were allowed to evolve, evolve, and thank god, you guys.
00:25:37
Speaker 4: Were there so much fun.
00:25:38
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us send you to write, to direct and to work to podcast.
00:25:45
Speaker 2: I mean, all of it is a dream. It's just a dream to know you guys. I love you so much.
00:25:50
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte?
00:00:08
Speaker 2: Welcome to Are You a Charlotte?
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Today we have another episode with the incredible Julie Rottenberg and Lisa Sariski. We are now talking about four fifteen Change of Address, which was the second script they wrote after My Mother Board Myself. Two absolutely incredible episodes. I need to say at the top, it's a joy.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: Again, how incredibly lucky we were that we got those scripts.
00:00:37
Speaker 2: I mean, beyond beyond.
00:00:38
Speaker 1: But that's because you were amazing, Okay, And this episode directed by the incredible Alan.
00:00:43
Speaker 2: Taylor, so good, so good.
00:00:46
Speaker 3: Okay, So up now setting like watching it again? Well you have to remember, like Siera, Jesica and John Corbett really loved working together and they were so so the fact that this was the end of them or so we.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: Thought, right, Can I say, do you remember also when he left us when.
00:01:10
Speaker 3: Because we weren't there, we were we were just watching it. Do you not.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: Remember him crying at the read through?
00:01:17
Speaker 3: Well?
00:01:18
Speaker 1: Wait, which one three of Sorry, just like that that.
00:01:24
Speaker 2: I loved all the way to the president.
00:01:27
Speaker 4: Left many times.
00:01:28
Speaker 1: I upset, I know, right, but I just love that he has that depth of feelings and he I cannot yet talk him into being on the podcast. So I'm just yes, if you run into please please put in a word.
00:01:43
Speaker 2: Okay, I know.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: Him.
00:01:47
Speaker 4: He just wants to he wants to be asked again.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: No, no, no, He's been begged for literally hours okay, totally hours. But what I want to say, what I want to represent here, because I feel like it's important since we don't have his own voice, is the depth of feeling that he brings to everything that he does, and how much we love him, and how much he loves us back, and how every time have we written him out he cries.
00:02:09
Speaker 3: It's like this.
00:02:11
Speaker 4: He brings such authenticity to it.
00:02:13
Speaker 3: I mean he really Yeah, and that scene will rip your heart out there, by the way, that scene Okay, so the episode this is where Carrie and Aiden they're engaged, but she's wearing the ring around her neck. Wait, how did that happen? I need to know, golly well, just to recap in case.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
00:02:33
Speaker 3: Not On the four o eight podcast, we were using this part of my life that was hard, which was that I was with someone I really loved and I thought I wanted to be with forever. But I did not want to get married. He did want to get married. It was very upsetting and hard and something I was wrestling with for many years. As Alisa knows, I should mention, he is now my husband. So it all worked out.
00:03:00
Speaker 2: Everyone ends fine.
00:03:02
Speaker 3: But that was a moment in time when I felt very alone in feeling that way as a woman, especially and seeing lots of pictures on TV and in the movies of women desperate to get married and and the man proposing and the woman saying yes. So we decided to put all of that, I should say, Michael Patrick King decided to put all of that into this relationship for Carrie and the ring around her neck? Do you remember that?
00:03:29
Speaker 4: I wish I could remember. I feel like it might have been a Michael.
00:03:35
Speaker 2: It was like of her not doing her own things.
00:03:40
Speaker 3: Susan Sharon shows up. Is that what the kids are doing? Right? Which is so.
00:03:49
Speaker 4: Good?
00:03:52
Speaker 3: Yeah that I have to say, Alan Taylor, oh my god, Chef's kiss like that whole, that whole seeing Lisa and I were just talking about seeing Miranda and Carrie that walk and talk down the street and Miranda faking a sonogram because everyone's so excited I think that was another thing. And the irony is we didn't have kids at the time, But this idea of what you're supposed to feel like as a woman, as an expectant mother and not feeling that, and how do you bridge the divide? Is it me? Is it society? But that walk and talk of them and then going into the wedding shop was really.
00:04:38
Speaker 4: I know, I was saying, I haven't watched that episode in so many years. I haven't watched the series in a long time, so going back and watching it, I didn't even remember. All I remembered was Carrie had an anxiety attack wearing a wedding ring. But I did not, for some reason, remember that the whole thing was a joke and that Miranda was going to also try on like that, that she was going to also try on a wedding dress. Like I completely blocked.
00:05:11
Speaker 1: That out, and I have in my mind the visual image of them both there, like it was so creative for that.
00:05:18
Speaker 3: And it was by the way that the sun was going down and we're about to lose the lights in that they come into the Bridle Place on the upper West Side, and how great is that? I was sending her name that actress who is the Bridle shop uh you know owner. But it was getting really late and we were about to lose the light and we had to shoot that scene. We were like, we need that scene. It was like could we cut the scene? Could we cut to them? And so watching it again now, it just had you feel the stress. Great but great energy. Yes, you got to get this scene in.
00:05:54
Speaker 2: Well, sometimes that helps when we got to get the start. It's not fun.
00:06:00
Speaker 3: I'm too much of a worrier.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: Like freak me out, It's true, but it's something about the energy of that then enlivens the scene.
00:06:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, some energy right, but yeah.
00:06:13
Speaker 3: So that was one of these scripts that was both it felt very personal and painful and another perfect example of a scene that we had set. We pictured that last fight that they have. They're in these gorgeous black and white We pictured that on a divey street down in like.
00:06:35
Speaker 4: Industrial like I just wanted to And.
00:06:38
Speaker 3: The idea was they would look gorgeous in their fancy black and white form, but be on a gross street in New York, just.
00:06:46
Speaker 4: To show that contrast.
00:06:48
Speaker 3: Right, And Alan fell in Alan Taylor, who directed the episode, fell in love with the Fountain, which is.
00:06:55
Speaker 4: No longer they are. It's no longer Columbus circles there, but it's not a fountain.
00:07:01
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought about that, is it since they built that building.
00:07:05
Speaker 4: Just a monument.
00:07:08
Speaker 2: I think it's when they did the building though, you know there used to not be that big.
00:07:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, but this is a perfect example of where like that. That was the idea was in the script and we were like, it's got to.
00:07:19
Speaker 4: Be on a grungy right, and he's like, I want a beautiful and in the.
00:07:27
Speaker 3: End and like, kudos to Michael, he was like, look, he really wants he really wants this beautiful shot. And of course now it's such an iconic, right, and it's so cinematics but beautiful.
00:07:40
Speaker 1: As an actor, I always think like, I can't believe they did this with the sound.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was hard.
00:07:46
Speaker 3: That was hard. By the way, we shot that scene the same day we did your tap dancing with Andre to Shields. No way, we were I remember all I remember about that, very invested in the tap dancing.
00:08:00
Speaker 4: You ever tapped?
00:08:01
Speaker 2: I never, no, No.
00:08:02
Speaker 1: As a child, I think I took tap dancing because my parents made me take all the things, right, but I hated it and I took it, maybe just the shortest amount of period of all the dance, right, because I love the others.
00:08:13
Speaker 2: I haven't took modern bizarre.
00:08:16
Speaker 4: And I need to see that.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: There's no there's no maybe I have a picture with the tuto or whatever.
00:08:23
Speaker 3: I don't know. Valleri Kristen did for us. By the way, thank you to this day. I tapped it.
00:08:31
Speaker 4: Okay, I just want to say so, yes, yes, you've never seen Julie tap dance on set. No, that's what she does when she's liker.
00:08:41
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, okay, yes, and you learned for us, of course I did. We were so panicked whenever we saw anything that said dance. Do you remember how we would call in the choreographers.
00:08:52
Speaker 4: Which is which is more stressful for you, dance or Hebrew prayers?
00:08:58
Speaker 3: We did because we foisted both of those.
00:09:04
Speaker 4: Thank God for you guys.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: Thank God for you guys, Charlotte. They did alo present.
00:09:13
Speaker 3: Know more prayers, just so you know, than like many of my Jewish relatives, my deepest unconscious okay, because as soon as they're over.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: They just like evaporate or whatever. So if I hear someone else, I'm like, okay, yeah, I know.
00:09:25
Speaker 4: That the candle.
00:09:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I know that.
00:09:29
Speaker 1: But the first time when I did it for Harry, which we haven't gotten to it, but everyone listening knows when I first time, when I had to do the whole dinner and then he's watching the game and I'm mad.
00:09:38
Speaker 2: Yes, that was really hard because I was mad.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: I remember, yes, And also I'd had multiple coaches then who had different pain.
00:09:48
Speaker 3: Lind we a lot of Jews.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: We took care of that because then they came they.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: Were like that fired the Jewish.
00:09:58
Speaker 4: I remember that, remember, and.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: Very stressful and that you had me doing that, but it amazing. I still have that outfit though in my closet.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you and the flowers. By the way, that was actually from uh. I. I had to take swimming at Columbia.
00:10:19
Speaker 2: I kid you not.
00:10:19
Speaker 3: Everyone had to take swim and I had. I was in flowers of flowers bathing suit, and I just remember the guy going you.
00:10:25
Speaker 2: And the flowers.
00:10:27
Speaker 4: I remember I had forgotten you, and I want to give such so I'll just say like I had. I knew that Charlotte was going to tap dance, but I had forgotten the deeper story, which was that you didn't that Charlotte didn't want to. She wanted to skip over the grief about the divorce, right, like, I just want to I'm just keeping myself busy and I'm learning new things.
00:10:55
Speaker 2: Very Charlotte also, what's interesting to me about it?
00:11:09
Speaker 1: And I don't know what was going on the writer's room about this, but I wonder if you guys remember anything. So you know how third season is when we get Kyle, and he was only supposed to be a short amount of time, and he was supposed to be the boring husband that no one wanted to talk to. But he was Kyle, so obviously I wasn't that exactly and we wanted to keep him. Remember in the third season, we're up in Connecticut. He's playing tennis without his shirt, and I'm.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Like, I just think we should separate back in the city.
00:11:35
Speaker 1: But then I also don't feel the feelings, do you know what I mean? I go back, I'm at the coffee shop. I'm like, we're separated. Rewatching, I was like, wow, I'm not feeling the feelings. But I don't know if I'm not feeling the feelings because it's not actually done or you know.
00:11:51
Speaker 4: It's a very interesting thing that we weren't on three.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: So but when you started season four, what I will.
00:11:59
Speaker 4: I don't want to. I don't want to like out any writer who was in here, but there you can do. There was a writer who I think was going She was going through a breakup and did not want to feel the feelings and she just wanted to keep going and just get back out there and date and just be happy. And why do I have to be sad about it?
00:12:23
Speaker 2: Interesting? I mean, it's very Charlotte. It makes perfect sense.
00:12:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And I also think Charlotte's whole thing is like if I want something, I'm going to pursue it, and I'm going to do it and I'm going to make it happen, right, So, like I don't know. When I was watching it back, I was like, I don't know where the moment is that she actually gives up, right, because obviously her and Trage back together, do you know what I mean? And she tries and because the sex starts happening, thank god, it's confusing, but she's and then she comes with her list at one point do you remember this? But she's like, I'm trying with my list and you're distracting me by kissing me. You know, she she does her best at where she is in life at that time, right with the chemistry is there and the picture perfectness is there, right, and she's going to keep trying right and then obviously in the end it still doesn't.
00:13:10
Speaker 2: So it's interesting to look back on it.
00:13:12
Speaker 1: I also just don't know personally right, because you have to always think about, well, where was I personally?
00:13:19
Speaker 2: I was nowhere near all this stuff.
00:13:21
Speaker 1: And I remember when we start with the fertility thing, I didn't even know people who were doing this please were like.
00:13:27
Speaker 3: I mean, our whole thing having gone through all that fertility how many years later, was like, I can't believe we were We couldn't like we wish we right.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: But I do think based on fans talking to me, that we did it justice because people said we did.
00:13:44
Speaker 3: Deal a lot of people.
00:13:45
Speaker 4: We didn't know enough people.
00:13:46
Speaker 3: But yes, but this episode, back to the table we were talking about in the other episode, Yeah, that episode had multiple scenes that took place in the apartment next door we had written. You remember, we had a whole scene where Aiden had built he was building her shelves and he said, can you reach this? We wanted to make sure like the character wanted to make sure we had a whole scene in there. After the table read, we did another like we went back to Michael's. We had to do like major surgery, like a real rething. You remember. It was all around their breakup and how we were going to build to that and getting to do you hate me? And and how just was that passive aggressive? And after that long writer's meeting, after the table read at Michael's house, we went for dinner at Pasties in the meatpacking district. We're having a dinner, We're talking more about the episode and what it's going to need. And then I remember at the end of the dinner, Michael said to us, Okay, so we have a production meeting tomorrow at nine am. You'll need to have a draft by then. But ever stayed up all night. I don't remember, oh my, and I remember I went back we both lived in Brooklyn. I went back to my house at like five in the morning and was doing like the final touches, and I remember Michael Eric Michael's just have to get that in now. And of course I was doing like last minute things on it, and it was like, just send it, send it. I literally came in for a production meeting and like hadn't slept and we were like vibrating, Oh my god. And then you watch it and it's like, how could it have been any other way? All those scenes, by the way, and poor Malfie, John Malfie, the amazing John Malfie had like built the most beautiful that apartment that we got. And then the other crazy thing that that people might not know is the end of that episode when she says she crawls into bed on the other the other permit. She says, that was the only night we would ever sleep on the other side of the wall, which to us meant it's over. People who saw it at HBO in post were like, that's unclear. It sounds like they made up that that was the only night that they would that.
00:16:06
Speaker 2: Now we're going to be together.
00:16:07
Speaker 3: So we had to add and it was that season we broke up right after nine to eleven, and they dropped those last few, those last six I think, and we had to add a voiceover saying the next day Aiden moved out, And that was like a big debate were we going to add that voiceover?
00:16:25
Speaker 2: Weren't we?
00:16:26
Speaker 3: And I remember like being very like literally watching it on TV and being like, did they add that voiceover? Isn't that crazy?
00:16:33
Speaker 2: That is crazy?
00:16:35
Speaker 1: So I'm going to take a little leap here just because we have not yet discussed for Richard and Samantha. We literally haven't said his name yet. I don't think yeah, okay, maybe we met him.
00:16:50
Speaker 2: We did meet him.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: We didn't meet him when she Yeah, James remark, we met him when she goes to get the job and she doesn't get the job because she slept this architect, right, and he's like, yeah, that's not gonna work for me. And we talked about how that would never happen now hopefully hopefully not in such an unapologetic way, right, right, But so can we talk about Samantha getting into a relationship, like what was their stress about that?
00:17:17
Speaker 4: I mean, we all felt like she was ready, she.
00:17:20
Speaker 2: Got it because we had to shown a thing, which is bizarre.
00:17:25
Speaker 4: Just frankly, Yeah, it wasn't.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: For her, No, well it's not.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: It's so obviously not for her because she doesn't want to talk or anything, right, I.
00:17:33
Speaker 3: Mean much in a way that you're saying we hopefully deepen these characters in this season. We all felt like Samantha is ready for something more and let's see, let's see if we can do it. And right there, first we have to find an actor who right that her and he was incredible, James remark, right, And then we had to decide like, okay, are we doing this, Let's see what would Samantha be like in a relationship? God, it sort of toggling between being role not wanting to be vulnerable and feeling insecure and reading this stuff about you know, all the.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: Page big stuff.
00:18:12
Speaker 4: Right.
00:18:13
Speaker 1: How much was that was that like in my mind when I think back to this time in our lives, Right, this is when I felt, at least that you literally could not be in a restaurant and have a conversation because whatever you said would end up in the papers, right, I mean yeah, so I almost said, like, I don't know if you guys felt that way, but you probably didn't.
00:18:36
Speaker 2: But you know, we had code names if you were just trying to talk about your day. I'm okay, everyone should have it so much we can't say what they are because then they're ruined me.
00:18:55
Speaker 3: You know.
00:18:55
Speaker 2: It's stress.
00:18:56
Speaker 1: It was stress like because we were such a part of new work, right, and that was a great thing of course, but it was so much pressure, like you couldn't even just say, like, we spent so many hours at work. Then I'd be like Kristen Davis, right, do you think that went into these types of like sometimes I feel like it's informed by the publicisty.
00:19:18
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well. I also an early job for me was I did work at the New York Post in the mid nineties, four old before teaming up with Julie Wow And I used to where I sat. I was on the features desk, which is mostly entertainment, but we were ten feet away from Page six reporters. So it was like a front row seat to the most incredible show because back then that was that was the gossip source. I mean that was one of like three or four gossip sources, unlike today. Oh yeah, so yeah, so that was a fun thing for me to.
00:20:05
Speaker 2: Sort of fun was a composite of the.
00:20:10
Speaker 4: Worked at Page six and who were just colorful and hilarious and interesting. You know.
00:20:16
Speaker 2: So that's where I got it, got it, got it, got it. Can I tell you guys?
00:20:31
Speaker 1: The sad, sad news is that we have to end, which is really horrible because too much fun, it's so much forever While you're here because we're going to have to have you back, because now you're now your names are on the script, and I can have you whenever I want.
00:20:44
Speaker 2: You, which is all the time. Okay, all the time. But I have pressing questions. Sure, Julie, mm hmmm, are you a Charlotte?
00:20:57
Speaker 3: I seen that coming. Well, the truth is on Sex and the City. When we were writing that series, I would never have said I was a Charlotte. I would have said I was a Miranda. Basically, I'm Miranda, obviously with some Carrie, but basically a Miranda. But all these years later, and just like that, I realized I really am now a Charlotte. I am a mom, and I have this marriage and these kids, and so many of my current issues and adventures fit more for Charlotte. So I feel like either I've evolved or devolved or changed sure in all the ways.
00:21:37
Speaker 2: Love it well. So Charlotte has changed. Yes, hopefully we all do. Yes, And Alisa, I kind of know.
00:21:43
Speaker 1: But tell me.
00:21:48
Speaker 4: My husband is also bald Charlotte. No, I'm very much a charge. I mean, I think I definitely had back in Sex in the City days, I might have had a little Charlotte shame, like, oh, I don't want to be like, oh I'm not so yeah. So I was never like a rules girl, like there are things that I watch, you know, not every part of char course, but in a word, yes, I love it.
00:22:17
Speaker 3: I love it so And now that you put it that way, I realized like thank you notes, like I was raised to, like you write a thank you note that under penalty of death, and that is such a Charlotte thing.
00:22:27
Speaker 1: Definitely you always had that. And also you're very perfectionistic. Yeah I'm very Charlotte, I mean, but but Marine is also very overachieving, right, So that's you're kind of connect lead.
00:22:39
Speaker 3: They bleed into it, Yeah, they do.
00:22:42
Speaker 1: And I also think that, you know, because of the trajectory that we've had together, you know, for all of these many years, time on, time off doesn't really matter, right, the fact that we've gotten to continue together and that you guys were such a huge, huge part of it.
00:22:56
Speaker 2: Just like that, I'm so grateful to.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: You and the way that you allow Charlotte to evolve and deepen and shift. And someone said to me the other day, like, Charlotte, you're so strong and then just like that, and I was like, oh, Wow, they said, did they say that too?
00:23:12
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, no one ever said that to me.
00:23:14
Speaker 1: I mean, Michael said to me, you can't change too much because I need all the change to be around you, and I need you to like hold the.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: Center, are like the found Thank you babe?
00:23:26
Speaker 3: What's the word, like the the hub of Yeah, you have to be strong like when people are falling apart around you.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: Thank you? And that was always true when you look back.
00:23:36
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing too is that, like when we started, and I don't know if this was me or her or both, so much insecurities, right, Like I had so many insecurities personally, but also Charlotte because the rest are cool and she's not cool, Like that's kind of a fundamental thing about her. She's earnest and she's full of feeling, and she has.
00:23:56
Speaker 2: These goals and they're not the cool goal.
00:23:58
Speaker 4: Yes, you know what I mean.
00:24:00
Speaker 2: You don't have as much armor as no armor, basically, you know what I'm saying. And that's true for me as well. Right, So that's where we bleed.
00:24:09
Speaker 1: But also like the first Emmys, which was such a wonderful, you know, surprise, wonderful, incredible thing, and I had no stylist, and I just went around town and during ittings by myself, and I had a stack of polaroids and I would take them to different people in my life, like my publicists, my publicists boss, my manager, my manager's boss at the time, my agents.
00:24:29
Speaker 2: Everyone had different opinions.
00:24:30
Speaker 1: And one of the things that all the men in the group would say is, you have to wear something very sexy, because you are completely unsexy.
00:24:38
Speaker 2: On that show. You're the unsexy one.
00:24:40
Speaker 3: You are the prude.
00:24:42
Speaker 2: Can you believe that that's so wrong?
00:24:44
Speaker 1: But I had really forgotten that until I was thinking about the same the day, but because we were a show called Sex.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: And the City.
00:24:50
Speaker 1: But we had Samantha, who's the you know, no fear, no rules, powerful right, and then we had Charlotte, who was in in some ways presented as the prudish one in the beginning but not actually right.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: And then time goes on.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: But you forget about the beginnings, you know, Like they wanted me to wear this crazy dress that Mariah Carey ended up wearing, which is why I didn't wear it. That was like a cutout Michael Cores, where like your breasts are barely in I have a polaroid of it. I'm going to put it on the air as I need your pictures. I need your pictures of the babys okay, because they're so cute, but anyway, just it's so funny to think of the ideas that we had at the beginning and how things.
00:25:33
Speaker 2: Were allowed to evolve, evolve, and thank god, you guys.
00:25:37
Speaker 4: Were there so much fun.
00:25:38
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us send you to write, to direct and to work to podcast.
00:25:45
Speaker 2: I mean, all of it is a dream. It's just a dream to know you guys. I love you so much.
00:25:50
Speaker 3: Yeah,