Miranda Inside and Out with Cynthia Nixon...

Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are you a Charlotte? So when you think about I mean, I have so many questions, I don't even know where to start.

But like, if you.

Think about, can you remember before Miranda and you would just go about your life and no one would recognize you or people would randomly recognize you from different things.

What was it like in terms of being in the world you mean before our show?

Yeah, yes, I feel like again because I was in this pretty successful movie when I was twelve, right, I have no no, no little darlings later Also, I mean Oscar Oscar, right, So I always had a certain, very manageable number of people got it recognizing. But so it was lianforable. It was like a little a little salt. Sure, it wasn't like an entire meat loaf. It was like a little sauce, right seasoning.

Yes.

And then do you remember when the show started to air and people started to watch it, more than like three quarters of the people that would come up to us were black men.

No remember this? No, it was so I mean fascinating.

And I don't think it was just me because we've all we all used to talk about it.

It was weld in the very beginning days. Uh huh.

It was like, surely you're not our demographic, right, what's going on?

What amazing? But it was fantastic. Maybe it was the guys who wanted to watch the boxing on HBO, That's what it was.

Oh wow, it was the live sports event, so it had a very bail And I don't know.

So let me ask you this because this is something I think about when I watch it, like in terms of the sexuality stuff, like the actual sex scenes, you know. And I struggled with this myself, which is coming up is when I locked myself in the dressing room but it hasn't happened yet. Did you think about I mean, you were.

Very Are you fearless and not?

I'm afraid at all times in the sex scenes to the point where I would be like, maybe I need to go when Cynthia is filming sex scenes so that I can tell Eigenberg do not grab her breast like that.

You remember this? I was like, why do you grab your breast like that? You're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, it's not attractive, it's like too hard.

I eded to tell him that you were like whatever, you know, which I love about you, but you know, like, did you think about, like, what, what what.

Are we doing here?

Is this for the male audience or is this for the female audienced? What I'm saying, like, yeah, I guess I always.

I always thought it was kind of I always thought that it was for the female audience primarily, but I thought it was like it's like maybe this is a crazy similar but it's kind of like birth control, right, It's like really important for us as women to have birth control, right, Like, and the guys are like, you've got birth control, this is fantastic.

We can have sex. You're interested in having sex?

Right, this is you know, it's kind of like, I mean, I feel like it was so empowering and maybe it was a little on steroids from the reality for most women, but it was happening out there, and so men, you know, I think for men it was like a like it was not only a wonderful peek into the secret world, right, which was fascinating, but it was also like there is this very old and it has some truth to it, but it's not the entire truth, right, there is some sense of like women use sex as a tool to

It's true, and I do feel, unfortunately weirdly like that's still out there in a strange way.

Well, and it's not completely untrue. I mean it's yeah, I mean that there are you know, I mean, both things are true.

I guess that's true.

I Mean the thing that's funny to me though, is like if you think about then and then you think about now, like you know, hook up culture like young right, it's very very more advanced, like the dating apps, you know.

Whatever, even much more so.

Right. Obviously, I don't know really anything about the hookup culture that's happening now right right, And And I guess my my thing that seems to me different than our show, right is like women can and always have had a lot of sex, but I think not one hundred percent of the time, but by and large the sex that these four women were having.

Was not was not to try and get men like that that's a good point.

Yeah, And so that's what I worry about the hookup culture now. It's like, you think you're very liberated because you're having a lot of sex, but are you do you want to be?

Are are you having sex because you want to? Or are you having sex to try to get something?

To try and get like a different version of like trying to get a ring. It's like, does he like me? Willly really not call me.

If I don't? My god?

Yeah? Which is like so Charlotte also with the with the off the butt thing, right, Like she because she doesn't want to do it, you know, right, she really likes that guy, you know, and then and she thinks like he's just going to break up with her or not marry her or whatever.

It's like so crazy, but it's both, right, It's interesting. It's like she worries he's going to break up with her if she doesn't do it, but also she's not really at the moment interested in it right as a thing in and of itself.

But also it's like.

But if I do do this, will he respect me? Will he he will never marry me?

Right? And also because Samantha very smartly in the car is like in the cab, she's like you know, and you talk about the power dynamics like it's super fascinating. I mean we're touching on all of it, you know, in such a good way that I do feel like is still true, you know, like are you doing it because you want.

To do it?

But also you need to think about like someone's going to give up the power and you might have more power, but you might have less power. Like it's super fascinating and still I think so interestingly true.

Right right, And I think you know, if you think about Samantha, who is like the most empowered, right, the most sexually free, but also just the most empowered, yes, right, yes, but there are you know you see the pain that she had, like particularly when she's dating Richard.

Yeah, you know you know that that there is even for the strongest character. You know, well even in Valley of the twenty something guys.

You know she's with the chef guyd Do you remember that he's like lanky, he's got like long, choppy hair, and then.

She'll always be older. Yes? Right? That cut right? That cut for me? That cut deep?

You know, I mean it's so interesting how many small moments we have in almost every episode that I'm.

Like, oh, well, that's and that's the thing that was so great about the show, you know, is that because again people saying, like, did a feminist show, but you're wearing high heels and sexy outfits. Like right, It's like one of the great things about the show is that all of the characters, not the least of Carrie, you know, are all deeply flawed and make bad decisions.

And so, you know, I love wonder Woman. I've always loved wonder Woman.

Yes, we love that you love, but I have my wonderfolan backsack here today. But I know, and I have always known, that Wonder Woman is a very two dimensional figure.

Good point.

She's perfect, right, she's loving, she's strong, she's you name it, she's gotting getting an A plus definitely, and I enjoy her, But I understand she has no dimension, and she's really not that interesting. Right, And that's the thing about all of our both in the writing and in the playing, the thing that you were talking about before the contraction. You have the headline of who the character is, but right below the headline they're all the the contradictions and

Of the of the engagement, ransom husband and the ring right.

But she, you know, she's constantly having that myth kind of eaten away, most definitely, and also when particularly when she tries to get married and then doesn't know no, I.

Work out the pie in the face, you know.

Michael and I talked a lot about the pie in the face and how all of us get our own version totally of the pie in the face. We also talked about the complexities of the character, because I do feel like there's this crazy thing about carry not being likable, which is, you know, kind of insane, because I don't know why we would still be, you know, like, well.

But it's why it's so we're so lucky to have Sarah Jessica. Yeah, It's like, it's why we're so lucky to have you playing Charlotte, because in someone lesser hands, she would have been more.

Two intentions, right, I mean I think so all I remember at the time, because, as you know, my life is not like Charlotte's life. No, basically at all. There are some crossovers, but I was never interested in getting married, so like that took a lot of work on my part to be like, ah, you know, but I do think I mean, they didn't know this, you know, like

There's no chemistry reading, I know, no, nothing, So thank god it worked out.

But we do have these characteristics that are very good for our character.

We've got the characteristics, but then we're also very complex people and also very different people coming together from different places, which I think contributed in a positive way to what was on screen. You you don't need to know that, right, You just feel it when you're watching it, right.

You know what my mother used to say about the show, She said, you know what I like about your show, and watch it.

I can tell who everyone is. They don't all look alike. I'm not confused, that's true. I don't know what.

I think she's talking about, how television, because I was talking about this a little bit too, like there was a homogeny, you know, like a.

I mean, we're all white obviously, and we're all of an age.

But even that was different, right because we were all of an age. There was no other show other than the Golden Girls, you know which I mean people. I remember going to an interview. I can't remember, Oh, I do remember who it was. I shouldn't even say this, but I walk out. It's a guy. It's a late night thing, and he goes, oh, you know, you guys are the new Golden Girls, and I was like mad.

And I was just like, we're on Earth. Like I just remember.

Getting put through so many bizarre, like embarrassing and complex things where you will want to be like, do you not know that that's kind of like offensive? Like I guess you're trying to be nice, but like, really were the Golden Girls?

Like really like okay, but that there.

Was just nothing to comparison to. There's just nothing. There was just nothing. And because we weren't twenty five, and because there were four women, right, even though it wasn't clear at the beginning, but it became more and more clear. You know that each of us were going to kind of get fleshed out and have that and have our own lane, right, and she would connect us, you know, with the with the voiceover and all that. Oh, let's ask you this, what did you think about talking to the camera.

I love the top of the camera. That is why we love Cynthia.

I know I always hated it.

Yeah, I love it. Why. I don't know.

I always, whether it's on film or on stage, when a character turns and talks to me.

You love to break the fourth wall.

I like to do it myself, but I love to have it happened to me as an audience. Okay, okay, and you know you now you see it's slightly different. But you see all those shows like like The Office and Modern Family and right where they're constantly like looking at the look at the camera.

Right while they're doing interviews.

They're doing interview documentary right right right.

It's a cute little Yeah. I never mind, I never mind it. I mean, I know why I enjoy those I don't really miss it in our show. I don't really miss it once it's.

Gone, right, No, I don't either. But I but I I liked it. I mean, I think it's interesting. I think it was hard.

For Sarah, uh, partly because she's in a massim Yeah, and also because of the Mathew thing with it, which I didn't even remember, but it makes total sense. But like when you watch her, I think it's the pilot of the first episode.

She's in a scene and then the guy gets in the cabin. She turns and talks to the camera like it's a very heard that I never did. I never have to know that, but I would do that.

I mean, we would just we'd have our scene where we were talking to the camera and you're so funny in the pilot when you're talking to the camera with the chicken.

With the chicken yeah, oh so you know.

I think also I think it was her unhappiness and maybe other people's unhappiness with that that made it go away. But also when we used to do all those like Man on the Street, Woman on the Street, Yeah, giving their opinion about whatever the subject at hand.

Way, I feel like they partly cut those because they were just time consuming. They were hard to do, they were.

Hard to do, and you always had to oh, we had to cast it and then find a location.

It's true, right, it's true.

I mean that's why I love the basketball one because they're in one place and it's all these different guys.

And it's the guys in the episode.

It's also not some random person that you're never going to see again in the episode or anywhere.

And that's a good point as well.

Like as a as a you know, convention or whatever you would call it, it was clunky in the beginning because like you had to find different people to come in and say X, Y or Z.

There is in the pilot. Right, It's like it's a way of being introduced to all of us, which exactly, which makes perfect sense. But yeah, it was hard to keep it going. It was hard to keep it going. From our conversations, like two things that occurred to me that I wanted to bring up. One was, you know, you were talking about the time when they asked us what was like the body part that we felt about

I think there was a female writer in La I can't remember her name, Terry something, but we never met that, right, right.

But so what I remember is there was I don't remember what episode it is, but it's pretty early where were we're talking about blowjobs and who likes them and who doesn't like them? Yes, and remember they came and interviewed us all no what because they were, you know, they were gay men, so they have their own opinions about blowjobs, right, and their own relationship to it.

Oh my god.

But they really they were really kind of a little sheepish.

But they felt like when you say they, do you mean Darren and Michael, Darren and Michael, I remember Michael specific Okay, okay, maybe.

They might have come. I think they might have come together.

Wow.

Now, And they wanted to know, like, I mean, the baseline question is.

Women enjoy blowjobs?

Is it just something you just do to you know, get along, you know whatever. So they went and then they put different things that people upset or whatever, not necessarily in the the person who had said it, but right because they were like, remember this, because I think every once in a while before we had female writers that were in New York, you know, it was like, really, should we have women here. We really should ask them because we actually don't know.

I'm so glad that they did.

On my flight yesterday, I was losing my voice, so I was really trying to be on vocal rest because I really wanted to have a.

Voice to talk to you.

Today, I'm watching Blue's you're watching what Blue?

Do you know? Blue?

Your kids are too old? Blue is in Australian cartoon.

Do you mean like Blues Clues. It's new.

It's really really good, Cynthia. Oh yeah, bluis dogs their dogs.

Well like Blues Clues. No, it's not like Clues.

It is a thing. It's a phenomenon. My kids are fully obsessed. We've seen them all. But okay, it's the type thing where I want to rewatch it.

Wow. Yeah, it used to be for us, Yes, in the early days, Yes, early SpongeBob.

There's nothing better. I think it's true.

SpongeBob had It was the one thing that our whole family, with all of our children at very different ages, we would all watch it.

It's a little lighter than SpongeBob.

SpongeBob has kind of a verse of humor underneath. This is more like somehow they're writing for the parents and the kids.

It's really good.

So I'm watching that because I'm watching something like a feel good thing, that's my feel good thing. And it's dark, you know, when everyone's sleeping around me, and these two adorable young flight attendants come up to me and kneel down, and I'm like, you know, because I'm in the middle of the Blue's right, So I pause the bluies, I'm like yes, and they give.

Me this note and then they skit her off and the note.

Is so sweet and I meant to bring it, but it basically says, we just want to thank you because we were raised for better or worse on sex, and.

And I was like, it's so gives me chills.

It's like an incredible and bizarre thing to think about.

Well, I write, I think we talked a little bit about you know, boyfriend's girlfriends, husband's wives together watching it being kind of a springboard for talking about sex. And I think a lot of mothers and daughters too, and again a great springboard.

For like absolutely and who I mean, it just boggles my mind to think about the origins of us, right, and I mean, thank god, we I think all had a sense of the wonderfulness, the power or whatever it was, and we were hoping that everyone else would also get it, you know what I'm saying, Like, and clearly HBO, thank God, did and let us, you know, have the space to

What are we going to say? What are they going to think?

And remember how we did, like anyone wanted to talk to us, We talked to them like we were like we are, We're going to get out there and work hard so that this is a success, you know, And we did obviously.

I mean, never have people worked harder I don't think for a TV show, you know what I mean. But it was bigger, It was big. It felt bigger.

I feel like it felt bigger in a way because there wasn't anything like it, right, you know, like it felt like we were part of something that was bigger.

And because we were on HBO two things, we didn't have sponsors looking over our shoulder, right and saying you can't say that you can't talk about that. You're right, yeah, and we and because it was HBO, a different version, but a subset of that was like it's a place where they would just let people with vision do their thing and not in.

Right, there was like very few notes, just two that I know of, and one had to do with your storyline where you and Sir Jessica Carrie, you and Carrie.

Sorry, I really mix this up. Sometimes it's bad. Okay, it's bad.

You and Carrie have some guy that you fight over. Do you remember this. It's not in the first season. I think it's second or third. And Carolyn Streuss was like, no, they will never be arguing over a guy.

Oh, it's not the guy from the when the guy I'm on the on the date with dies, right, it's not that it's not fren of me is a friend of me?

It could be fren of me. It's because I think it changed.

Right from the my friend Alana's husband Dominic from right, yes, and so right. I think the makes sense was she comes with me to the funeral of the guy that I was supposed to go on the date with, and I call and yell at his mother and then she's.

Like he died, right.

And then it's somebody that Sarah Jessica has dated or slept with in right, and she tries to warn me off him, and I was like, I like him right ever, so that must be right, because.

At one version there was like an argument between you guys about it, like a like a like she still liked him or something where we go out cool yeah, and Carolyn Strauss was like, no, they're never going to

You know, I only had two flats. I don't know what Miranda had. I think I had nothing.

I think I had nothing until I bought the Darkment and then I had a whole apartment.

Amazing, amazing.

Yeah, you're you're quite out in the world, which I love. You know, you're walking, you're talking, you're with Skipper, you're with Carrie.

We have to talk about you and Carrie. Yeah, we're talking about you and Carry. Yeah.

When you think about your relationship, the Miranda Carry relationship, I feel like and in ways that I never really clocked because of course I'm over there, just trying to do my best at Charlotte right right, not thinking objectively about everybody, but like it's such a through line and your.

Walk and talks. Now, I remember when we're when we're on.

And just like that, I'm always like, darn it, they have another walk and talk and I'm not in it.

Like I'm always so sad, you know what i mean.

But when I look back at the history of it, I'm like, of course they do.

It's like a It's like a touchstone our whole entire being. Right, Do you feel that way? I do.

I feel like I'm not sure I understand it. I feel like, you know, I feel like both Charlotte and Samantha have a thing that Miranda doesn't have, which is they have a little bit of like, I'm not gonna.

Mess in your world. That's true.

Yea. I see you doing something. I don't agree with it, I don't approve of it, I don't whatever, but I'm gonna respect it. I'm just not gonna mess with it, right, I don't want to have a fight with you, right, want to whatever?

Right, Moranda, Right, Miranda, Right?

And I think maybe it's because Miranda sort of came later to this idea of like a partner children, like a kind of an interior self, you know. So I think for a long time Carrie was that person for her.

Yeah, that was like her.

Right, and so she she fights with her the way you would fight with a spouse.

So true, right, is so true?

Like Miranda doesn't feel like there is a politeness boundary.

No, she doesn't.

And I think that's what Carrie likes and needs, right, you know, from the carry standpoint, Like here's someone who's actually going to tell me what she thinks.

Right, She's not going to tiptoe, She's going to go right in there. Right. Not that she listens to you, but you know, it's really interesting.

But I know.

So it's like the thing when Miranda disapproves of something or someone, it's very hard for Carrie to sort of like wuyet that head in her voice, yeah, because she thinks, oh maybe she's.

Yeah definitely, which is what's so great.

It's such a great and interesting dynamic that I rewatching it. I'm really much more aware of it than I used to be in terms of, like, so many important things happen on your guys' walking talks, right, you know that effect. I mean, maybe there's listen to, maybe they're not listened to, but like you're like thinking out loud and processing together

There's an exchange that I really love.

Yeah, And it's partly because you are so different and you have a different point of view.

Yeah, but you're equals, yeah.

Which is so great in so many ways. Where Charlotte's like, it's my hair, do you shine? At least that's how she begins, you know what I mean, But you guys right away, right away, I feel like it's very much equals kind of who respect each other. She I feel like she needs your opinion. She needs it. You know, She's not going to necessarily show you that, right, but she's like, oh, you know, she's very in her like way like oh you know this, and you're like, really.

I think, right, I mean, I do feel like, you know, I always I'm very into the Greek gods and school or whatever I know, and so it's so obvious. It's like, right, Aantha's Aphrodite, yes, and your Hara right, the goddess of marriage, right, yes, And I'm Artemis right, and then carrieus, I don't know who's but but but I mean I think that that's a thing about Miranda is like she's very like that's

Yeah. But also like my choice is my choice? Yes, yes, I choose my choice. I choose my choice. I choose my choice.

See I don't remember them, right, but she does. I can't really remember Miranda in the book so much. Like I do feel also like as much as I think about Charlotte not being fleshed out in the book, I don't really think anyone was that fleshed out in the book in a way.

Yeah. I mean I read the book and I liked the book, but I don't remember it hardly at all, Like I think.

We kind of just I remember it was hard to like the people. It was hard to like. It was he really hard to like the people.

Michael and I talked about this like it was you know, I do think that Candace was you know, kind of reporting the things she was hearing were going on in this kind of certain group of people, like the Finance bros. And the you know, it was a dark, as Michael put it, a dark kind.

Of a and the men had a lot of power and money, a lot of power in money, and there was kind of this and the women were wanting to be like just wanting to be.

So Michael talks about when he came in that he didn't really know that world. You know that Darren knew it and Candace knew it obviously, but Darren knew it and was bringing that Like when I watched the Modelizer, I had totally forgotten about that sex tape thing.

I was like, what on earth right now?

I'm one hundred percent sure that that really happened in Candace was just reporting it, but like the fact that carry has to sit there and be like, oh.

Oh, do you have a light? Like it's so crazy.

But then later she does go to Samantha and say like, oh, you know, you might not want to go over there, you know, in Samantha's like I will, which you know, the same I remember about the book is that there are all these people.

And they're all alienated.

Yeah, the men and women are definitely alienated from each other.

All kind of doom, it's true.

Right, But that that's the big switch that makes the show the show is like we're having we're all on our separate journeys and they're often disappointing or worse, you know, harrowing in some way, but but we the thing that we are not in doubt of is our love for each other and our commitment to each other and the factor right, and they were always going to be there for each other, and that as opposed to men with whom you might feel like you have to play a

Right, which is so so great.

I feel like that's almost possibly the ending, though I really hate to end, because I could touch you forever and it's so much fun, and I'd love to hear the other like, because even though we were all went through it, everyone has slightly different of the coming to it, Yeah, memory and coming to it and how you thought about it and what you think now when you look back, Like it's super fascinating and we're obviously so incredibly lucky to be part of it and part of something that

I mean that when I watched the show having you know, when I watched an episode having seen it however many times before, the thing that.

Always strikes me is how.

How concentrated its about, how there's no wasted there's no treading water, right, that it's so compack.

And I think it's one.

Of the reasons people do like to watch them again and again and again is there's every there's there's multiple things going on every moment, and it's so beautifully like woven together. It's so the themes and the lines, and that it's like a perfect you know, or a gami or something you know, like and so of course it's it's it's funny and it's shocking, and it's beautiful to look at, both in terms of us and the clothes and the cinematography and the city. But it's really that

And I think, I don't know what there is about Darren and Michael that, you know.

Maybe it was that the show was twenty three minutes or twenty seven minutes round whatever.

That's where Michael had come from, right, like true sitcom, right timing.

But that you have.

Maybe if you had one main character, you could tread water a little bit more, but you have four, right, and to try and get four. And we always know this is an episode in which I'm heavy, this is an episode in which I'm light, right, you know, this is this is my episode this is not my episodes. But regardless, even if it's not your episode, you do have a storyline.

Right, and you're there, and you're there, you're present, and so to be able to boil.

It down and make it be so economical, I think is like everything has to do three things.

Yeah, and that that's a really valid point. And I think also why it stands up, you know, I mean like not every tiny detail will stand up, and some of it's nostalgic and some of that that's cringey, right, yeah, but it's still fascinating and that's, you know, an accomplishment. Now, I want to say something else, since you're here and since we're on my podcast, and I can, I just want to say that I've said this in different settings.

You are such a gift.

You have been my protector in at least.

So for You're sweet and I'm so happy to have gone through this with you and to continue to continue.

I cherish you. Love, You're my baby, Thank you for coming. We know you're not a Charlotte. I'm really we don't want you to be. Really, it's cool. Really, it's cool.

I don't want people to feel like they have to be a Charlotte.

No, it's just a jumping off. It's a jumping off.

Question in case I don't know the person right right, but I know you. Thank you, Cynthia, thank you christ I wish, I wish that I know Christmas got Thomas