But there’s also been a decent amount of drama behind the scenes over the years. Learn more about some of the wildest things that happened behind the scenes of Sex and the City: 
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It’s hard to imagine Sex and the City without SJP’s portrayal of Carrie Bradshaw. But Sarah was apparently uncomfortable with the amount of sexual content in the show early on, even though she had a firm no-nudity clause in place upon agreeing to the role.
“I was not comfortable with nude scenes, scenes with sex toys, or vulgar language—so I did not do any … My character, Carrie, kissed a lot of men—but that’s as far as it went,” she told The Sun in 2010. “I had the maturity to control my panic about the whole series and what it meant. At one point, after the pilot show of Sex and the City was made and they wanted me to sign up for the series, I wanted to get out of it.”
2. Lisa Edelstein was the second choice for Carrie.
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As Sarah made up her mind about doing the show, Lisa Edelstein was chosen as a possible alternate Carrie. “I was either going to do it or not. It all depended on whether she said yes,” Edelstein said of Parker’s choice. “My contract was complete. I was waiting.”
3. Kristin Davis used to keep the show secret from her family.
Kristin was also worried about how her family would react to Sex and the City. Apparently, her parents encouraged her to keep the show a total secret from her grandmother. But her parents started watching after her grandmother died. Her dad even used it in one of his college courses, called “Marriage and Sexuality” — although he focused more on Samantha than Charlotte, according to The Guardian.
4. Kim Cattrall also tried to turn down the show.
Kim was 41 when filming on Sex and the City began, and she tried to turn the role down four times due to “self-inflicted ageism,” she told The Times of London. But her worries about people not finding her character sexy were unfounded. “Well, that changed — 40 became sexy. It became, ‘Man, let’s have more of that,’” she said.
5. Cynthia Nixon dyed her hair for SATC.
Cynthia is a natural blonde, and apparently, she nearly didn’t get the role of Miranda because of it. “For me, it was important that the hair color, body types, and everything were different,” creator Darren Star told MTV. “When Cynthia Nixon came in to read for the first time, she was blonde. I saw Miranda as a redhead. Thankfully, I took that leap of faith that she would look good as a redhead.”
6. Mr. Big is inspired by a real person.
Mr. Big was modeled after Ron Galotti, a magazine publisher who inspired Candace Bushnell.
7. The cast pushed for more diversity.
Apparently, Sarah and Cynthia were both the strongest advocates for increased on-screen diversity. “I’m a huge fan of the show, but if we had an area in which we really could use improvement, it’s certainly this one,” Cynthia said of the show’s lack of diversity in a 2003 interview with CBS News.
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8. The taxi cab scene in season one was a test for creator Darren Starr.
In season one, episode four, the four women discuss the pros and cons of anal sex while in a taxi. The scene was important to Darren Star, who felt that HBO executive Chris Albrecht’s reaction to it would determine just how much he could get away with in terms of the show’s level of explicit dialogue.
“When I went to talk to Chris Albrecht [then-president of HBO programming] about what we were doing, I mentioned this scene—and for me it was like a litmus [test] of how he was going to react and what their attitude would be toward the show,” Darren said to Entertainment Tonight. “I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to tell him the scene where Charlotte meets a guy who wants her to have anal sex, and she freaks out and talks to her friends about it, and either he’s going to think it’s really funny or throw me out of the room.'”
9. The last episode of the original series wrapped four days before its premiere.
10. Carrie and Mr. Big weren’t supposed to end up together.
“I think the show ultimately betrayed what it was about, which was that women don’t ultimately find happiness from marriage,” Darren Star said in a Kindle Singles interview, per the New York Post. “Not that they can’t. But the show initially was going off script from the romantic comedies that had come before it. That’s what had made women so attached.” Apparently, other producers insisted that the two wind up married.
11. Sarah Jessica Parker had to get a tetanus shot after filming the famous Central Park pond scene.
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Carrie and Mr. Big fall into the pond in Central Park in one famous scene, and apparently, the filming was completed in just one smooth take. Unfortunately, SJP cut her foot during the fall and had to quickly get a tetanus shot.
12. There were salary disputes among the cast.
Not all the cast members were paid equally, which contributed to some of Kim Cattrall’s discontent with the show. “I felt after six years it was time for all of us to participate in the financial windfall of Sex and the City,” Kim told E! News in 2004. “When they didn’t seem keen on that, I thought it was time to move on.”
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Whispers about a feud between Sarah and Kim have been swirling for decades. Sarah has denied a feud, though she has admitted that tensions sometimes ran high. “When you’re on set, you’re working 90-hour weeks, you’re never home, you’re exhausted,” Sarah told Marie Claire in 2011. “There are times when all of us have been sensitive, and sometimes feelings get hurt. But I don’t have any regrets about how I’ve treated people.”
Over a decade later, Kim told Piers Morgan that she and Sarah had “never been friends,” and added that she has no regrets from the show — but “I just wish that Sarah had been nicer.” Sarah, meanwhile, has seemingly maintained her neutral position.
14. Kim Cattrall sometimes found Samantha’s sex scenes unrealistic.
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“I read one scene and I thought, ‘I don’t know how I can pull that off,'” Kim told The Daily Mail Australia, saying that it was an “incredible challenge” to work on making her many sex scenes unique and different.
That’s right: one of Sex and the City’s most iconic outfits cost less than a modern-day NYC coffee.
16. Candace Bushnell sold her rights to her story for just $100,000.
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Candace Bushnell was paid $100,000 for screen rights to the novel that inspired Sex and the City, but wasn’t paid any royalties for the show despite its massive success. “All of these men who are in charge of things, they just keep moving these cards around to make money because every time they move the cards around somebody’s skimming,” she told The Times of London.
17. Both Steve and Mr. Big weren’t supposed to be major characters.
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Miranda’s beau Steve wasn’t supposed to be a series regular, but chemistry made the writers reconsider, and he wound up becoming a major character. Meanwhile, Mr. Big wasn’t supposed to have a major role, either. “He wasn’t a series regular” in the beginning, casting director Ellie Kanner told Cosmopolitan, but “he became that role. They wrote more for him.”
The cause: Sarah Jessica Parker’s pregnancy.
19. A book created for the show became a real-life phenomenon.
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Carrie is shown reading from a book called Love Letters From Great Men in the Sex and the City movie. The book didn’t exist, but fans latched onto the idea and demand from the book grew so high that an official version was created and released.
20. Carrie’s wedding dress was originally supposed to be black.
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Carrie’s huge Vivienne Westwood wedding dress is one of the most iconic outfits featured in the show. But it might have looked very different. Originally, costume designer Patricia Field said she envisioned Carrie wearing the black dress that Charlotte wound up wearing as a bridesmaid. “I think I was inspired by her relationship, up and down and topsy turvy, with Mr. Big,” Patricia said of her vision of a black dress. “In a way, it was like it became a mourning dress.” While Carrie may not have worn a black dress, Sarah Jessica Parker did wear black to her 1997 wedding to Matthew Broderick.
Which of these facts surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments!
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