Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte? Okay, you guys today, thank you for joining us on Rus Charlotte. We have an incredible guest, Ben Platt. He is almost an Egot winner. He has a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy, everything but the Oscar, which I have every faith he will one day get. You would know him from Dear Evan Hansen and also Pitch Perfect he plays Benji and also he was on the Politician Ryan Murphy series. I mean, he is incredible.
And he has this unbelievable concert at Radio City Music Hall where he basically says that he's a Charlotte and then he sings a song that he wrote about it.
So we're going to talk to him about that and so much more.
Here is the incredible Ben Platte day.
It is very exciting.
I'm so excited to be here.
And we have a bunch of similarities or connections though I have never officially met Ben, but what I have just start with though, and I don't know if you were aware of this, tell me so I fly a lot, fly around a lot, and we had one season of the show and just like that where it was during the school year, so I was literally flying to LA every weekend to see my kids. It was hard and I was deliriously tired. So one flight, I'm on the flight and there were some adorable young men on this flight.
I was like, they seem familiar, but.
I was so tired, and we take the whole flight. There's some chatting going on. There's possibly a mother or a mother in law. To me, there's some chatting, there's some boisterousness. I'm like, I don't know who they are, but they're super interesting.
We get off and I'm like, oh, my god, I think that's been.
Oh it was me, I think so and your husband. Yes, I mean that you didn't notice me.
No, I would have bothered you.
I'm so glad because I was so mortified but they didn't say hi to you.
I would have made you make a video for my sister's Thank God and Heaven.
Because I thought to myself, like, I mean I was in my like do not look at me phase, you know what I mean. I might have had a hat on. I was in like my.
Planes the most like it doesn't gifying zone to be a person zone.
Because later on I felt so bad because I thought that super adorable concert where you literally say that you are a.
Charlotte, It's true, I do.
Everyone and their brother sent to me.
I wrote a whole song I don't tell us about it.
Well, yeah, I mean I very much identified as Charlotte, always have. I grew up with two sisters, as I said, and they loved the show and exposed me to the show, and I've most of the show memorized. So I just it's very formative to me as as a gay person
and a New York person. So I also from a Jewish family, and very much the m O culturally, as obviously Charlotte becomes is you know, you got to find your find your husband and settle down and buy the china, and you know, it's all about like making a home and so for me and dating, like even prematurely, that was very much my m O and so I very much consider myself a Charlotte. So I wrote this song
called Share Your Address that's on my first album. That's about kind of jumping in really quickly as soon as you like someone after the first couple of dates. And I always say that it's very much inspired.
By Charles ah which I love so much, and it's so beautiful in the concert, it's so so beautiful, and people kept sending to me and I was like, this is adorable. It's before I had the podcast.
But then I was like, yes, this, we need to have him on the podcast.
As soon as I heard this was the thing. Yay, I'm so glad you're doing this. By the way, someone loves the show and watches it before I go to sleep. It's nice to have someone to chat about it with.
I do find this whole new. It's really amazing to have lasted this long in terms of the show being culturally discussed at all. And then obviously we got to go back and do it and just like that. And then they came to me while we were doing it just like that, asked me if I wanted to do the podcast. I had had other chances to do a rewatch podcast, and I hadn't.
I hadn't been ready in a way.
Yeah, of course.
It seems weird in a certain way to look back and kind of live in the past, like I didn't want to live in the past.
Of course, But I had also never rewatched the show.
And in my mind, of course I love the show. I always love the show. Everyone knows I love the show, but when I watch it, I'm blown away by how good it is.
It's really good and whatever you do, it's really good.
Thank God, right, thank God.
Like it's such a gift as an actor to just luck in, like literally fall into a situation where everybody is trying to do something new and everybody is committed, and everyone cares so much, and our writers were so amazing and still are and you know, so many different things. So I'm so lucky that I did say yes. I'm so thankful that I did say yes.
And I so understand that having to have the right amount of time between to like live your life and be a person and separate and then come back to it fresh and like I so understand like that you needed to wait till the right moment to raise it.
And now it's very therapeutic, really, I would imagine, right, it's so interesting and sometimes I remember nothing, like this entire episode was new to you, totally fresh.
At way I watch it, does it put you back on the day, Like do you think of do you get the flashes of like work days and little.
Flashes, because that is the way actors remember things. I remember like I was so hot that day, melting exactly. I can see me melting. I can I'm going to see weird details that no one else would see or whatever. I I don't even think I do. I gues I did have flashbacks. I'm remembering now. I'm remembering now. The funny thing is that sometimes, like for instance, I do
people over the years. It's always interesting to see what people remember and talk to you about, right, And people would talk to me about the S and M Club, and I'm always like, I don't know what you're talking about. This is apparently what I was talking about.
Yes, the La la de lure, Thank you so much.
Good job. I doubt that I know, and I don't. I didn't.
I have no memory of this at all, no memory of this at all, except that there is there's a picture of the cast, and I don't know where we are, possibly at a like a premiere party, and my hair is kinked. You know, it's scary, Okay, it's.
Star Do you love it?
Of course? And I just love that that's her interpretation of the assignment when she shows up. I know Charlotte is true to Charlotte.
Always Charlotte is true to Charlotte.
We all four of them are. Also, why they're so iconic and why everybody sees themselves in them is that they're very true to their you know, their centers. Obviously, they all change and experience things, but they have like an id each of them that like stays very consistent, and I feel like real people.
I agree one hundred percent. I agree with one hundred percent. There are people in the world who do not agree.
Well with us. They can come to me, actually thought do not, absolutely not.
I love that man.
Thank you for putting yourself out there for us.
Thank you.
Okay, So the thing, okay, here we are, we're back.
Should we go back and discuss Oh my God, of course.
Okay great? Or should we? I just want to just briefly touch on. So you're happily married.
I'm happily married. I want to tell the story I found my harry Golden Blat.
How did you find your harry Golden Blat?
Well, we met. His name is Noa Galvin. He's very talented actor and writer and singer and performer. And he and I met when we were like nineteen doing making like a web series, like a comedy web series and never saw the light of day.
I didn't even know this.
Yeah, my god.
We met really early on wo our mutual friends who we made this film Theeder Camp with. They were one of the first things that we all made together was this web series. They invited me in and I met Noah doing like improv with him, and we had a talent crushes immediately on each other. And then we started, you know, working together in the theater community, like workshopping musicals and stuff, and we started dating like right away when
we were like twenty years old. Wow. And I like really panicked and sort of freaked out quickly, and for reasons that I don't think I understood at the time. At the time, I sort of expressed it like, oh, like I think we're best for I think this is a friendship. I think this is like a lifelong friendship, and I don't want to ruin that by dating. And I don't think I understood at such a young age that like that is one and the same.
But nobody when they're young understanding.
No I thought those were like totally different categories, right, So you.
Were looking for the heat, that's right, right.
And so I sent him a text message that was so long that it has an arrow at the bottom to go to the rest of the text message, which wasn't the nicest way to do it. But he so he was mad at me for a little while, but then he was bb became friends and he was very patient, and we were friends for like five six years wow.
And then sort of had like a maturing turning point, mostly on my end of coming to my senses and realizing, you know, this was the sort of greatest person that I know has been in front of me the whole time, and he graciously allowed me to come to that realization. But we really gave both of us a chance to like sow some oats, which I really appreciate. I'm glad we didn't get together right away and we were able to come a little bit more fully formed. And we've
been married almost a year. Will September first will be our first amazing.
But then, where's the Durham van Hanson?
So the internet list to tell me that we met doing Derevin Hanson, which is not true, got it? We already done each other, yes, always for several years. When I was doing Iman handsOn, I originated the part on Broadway and they were looking for a replacement, and they obviously found Noah because Noah was very talented, and I was just like, oh, I loved him. He's amazing. I
co signed. That's amazing. So we already had a friendship and I was able to you know, help him, you know, acclimate to like that really intense part and at least make the transition as easy as it could be. But yeah, that was like chapter three or four in.
Our That's amazing. That's amazing. I love that story so much, and I love I do think that there's just so many different elements of First of all, you know, meeting when you're nineteen, I mean, that's kind of insane totally. So it's amazing that you were able to navigate that in a way and both have patience or whatever. It took time and patience and growth to come to the point where you did realize and you hadn't burn that bridge.
It was Yeah, I'm very grateful to the universe that, like I, for whatever reason, wasn't ready to deal with it and so kind of blew it up for a moment, and also grateful to him that he stuck with it.
And amazing congratulations. It seems definitely like we could use the word for shared.
Yeah, it's for shared.
Love it, that's right, love it so so much. Yeah, I love that story, and I think it's also funny. I love to correct things that are wrong out there because people goma.
On or something, and then it becomes like it's real.
But it's nice in the narrative. Yeah, right, and I get it. It's such a fun that's such a fun story. But like, we met doing Darren Hanson, and it's like we both played Evan Hanson, but it's more boring to be like, actually, we had done a workshop of a musical called Alice by Heart, and we had also made a web sketch together and gone to Vastar and stuff. But but yeah, I love it. We still did both Lavon Hanson, so.
That's of course, of course, and that's a funny. It's a funny, like, yeah, it's a quirky little thing. So a year married, a year married, what you thought it would be?
Yeah, I mean, I think the bigger change for me, especially because I've known him for so long, was the cohabitating, like we're moving in and really like building a home together for the first time.
It's a very Charlotte type of thing. Exactly how has it panned out?
Really really well. He's he's very aesthetically gifted, and that's very much his strong suit, which is not mine. I'm very good at cleanliness and organization, nice and like logistics and sort of executing, and he's a good ideas man.
So it's a nice combo. But because we had already done that and started living together for like almost a year by the time we got married, I think the marriage part was sort of just like, of course, like this is naturally what we want to do next and what feels right, and we didn't sort of come home the next morning and think like, oh now everything is different, We've changed everything. We just kind of watched Pop Star Academy.
And love it. The funny thing about Charlotte's whole thing because people do talk a lot about the China, because the China, you know, when when she marries Kyle and we're in Bergdorf and I flipped that plate over. But also even in the first season, I go out with Carrie's discarded man and he doesn't like my China taste, and I'm like out.
But sometimes if you know, you.
Know if you know, you know, and whatever way you find out, whatever meaningful thing in your mind that is. I guess that's important to me. I do think like, wow, Charlotte, it's very pick.
But she is, but she is and she and I love that with Harry they had to tryal and tribulate and come back to the growth on their own time.
And there's growth in Charlotte that is super important. But the thing that was funny about it in my mind, and this is again like an actor type of a thing. So when she was married to Kyle obviously sorry, what's his name, Trey, it's so so messy in my mind at this point that I.
Can did you have a nice experience working with him? It's a dream, Okay, He's wonderful on the show.
He's amazing. Love the character, I know, amazing, right and complicated.
Very very yes, fairly human and you know, heartbreaking and great and funny.
I haven't gotten to that part of the rewatch. I'm looking forward to it because I do feel like I need to work.
Some feelings out.
But what I remember is, of course, you know, the thematic is that this is exactly what she was looking for. Everything looks perfect on the outside, but it's not perfect on the inside, and that is her growth is that that's not going to work out, sadly, and that then she's going to expect and and grow herself inside and realize, no, this person who doesn't look anything like what she thought she wanted is in fact what she really wants on
the inside. And it has worked out to be, thank god, a happy relationship and marriage in the Sex and the City universe, exactly the only one, as he likes to say, the last man's standing.
It's true, I know, and I'm so happy.
I'm so happy for her and for him earned. It does feel earned, that's well put. When we came back to film, and just like that, it was a lot right. It was right after COVID. We were we had to get the sets out of storage and or rebuild them depending on the situation, and.
Recreate which Twilight Zone.
So much so.
But yet our children had grown up, right, so they were trying to update. They were like, how can we update? How can we change in a way that makes sense. So the first day I was the first.
Person to work, what was the first thing you shot?
Basically a day of crying because Big has died.
Whoa with the children who are now one day one. Yes, okay, yes.
I had to go to work at four thirty in the morning. I hadn't been to work in a while because of COVID, right, And.
Sometimes the first week is a wash because you're just like getting your bearings and your yess so unfair. I know I would never have.
Known, thank you.
They expect a lot of me, okay, but Michael Patrick was directing, so there's an ease in that. But I had my new children, who we you know, we've done a read through.
We do.
We were old school like that, so we've done that. I had my new dog, Myrtle. Love her so much. She's a she. I feel like I can say this now. I've been trying to keep this quiet. She's a she, so I often just refer to her by her character name, but she is a she, Myrtle. I love her so passionately, and I might start to cry.
She's eight, Okay, I just.
We just lost our dog in the spring. His name was George. Here's Steorge.
Oh, George is beautiful.
George is beautiful. Let's not cry about the dogs, because really it could happen. So I'm just going to close my eyes for a second and talk about being at work, going back to work. I'm all so excited, but also so nervous. I have so many important scenes I have to basically cry for like three episodes. When we first came back, there was a lot of Charlotte crying. And I can do that, but it was still a lot. So I go, I go into Charlotte set. I'm so
excited to see the things that I recognize. You know, she has that beautiful china cabinet with all of her china, and we know this is important to Charlotte. Then there's this little vestibule where you're walking from the dining room into the kitchen, and it's where there's like kind of desks on either side, and they had decided that this was the children's area and that the children were messy. So it was like if like someone's bedroom exploded into a very small area. And I was like, you guys,
whoa what is this? Are you not finished? You know, like saying up like we could see this in the shot. They're like, no, no, that's how it is, because you know the kids are messy. I'm like, but I'm still Charlotte.
True.
They can't be this messy, like what on earth? And they're like, oh, so this whole conversation has to happen, and I'm like anxious, so I'm like, no, like this they did.
They take the feedback?
They did? Good God, yes, thanks God.
That's what makes it feel real after all these years. Like Sarah Jessica talks about this too, just like you guys take all of the details very seriously, and what everyone do you know these women really well?
So it's just like and everyone on the set also takes all these details really seriously. So it's really interesting. But what we we had to come to like a happy medium of it, right, because yes, they are teenagers right.
Tween teams, you're right behind them exactly.
And also I wouldn't want them to be trying to be doing better, right. So also in their bedroom we had like Lilies I'd be really neat and Rose slush rock because she wasn't yet not be really neat, right, So it was all very interesting. But anyway, you reminded me of that with the china, because this really the china stands out to people about Charlotte.
It's like emblematic because she's also like very I don't know, optimistic and elegant and naive, and it sort of like
symbolizes all of that. And that's also a really hard thing to play, just to like guss you up for a second, to play somebody that's so coming from such a place of earnestness, as someone who plays a lot of characters that are very earnest and is a very earnest person that people have don't have a lot of, Like they don't have a lot of like a very large tank for that, Like it fills up quickly for them.
So I think the fact that you made her feel like a real person and sustained the character for so long and let us like go on the journey with her and lived in that space so consistently, it's like a really challenging, impressive thing today.
Thank you so much, Ben.
Isn't that an interesting thing about society that people are so funny about kind of like earnest, open hearted characters.
I know, it's one of my least favorite cultural shifts. I would say everything is cringe unless there's an apathy to it.
I know it makes me want to cry.
Yeah, it's not the best.
And I feel like people do really really love Charlotte, you know I do.
I'm glad and I love you and your characters.
And I feel like you have to just keep on, you know what I mean. And even if people want to be critical and say like cringe, cringe, this, cringe whatever, blah blah blah, or she's not believable or whatever it is that they say, you just have to hang on and just do it anyway, because if it's.
Coming from a place of love and optimism, there's no there's no downside, right, It's just a ad positive to the world. Yes, thank you, ye, yeah, of.
Course that's very healing conversation for me to have.
True at this time.
It's true. That's why identify with her so much, asked my husband. I'm very earnest in our home.
I love it. I think you have permission to be earnest anywhere you want to be earnest, you know. And I want to say, also, this is going to be on whatever it's gonna air, it drops after and just like that is finished.
Oh my god, the whole thing will be done. I mean, I only have the last two to see, so I don't I don't, I don't want to hear. But I'm very anxious, too, very anxious to see.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, I haven't seen either. And you know, it's hard.
It's hard.
It's a big chapter, it.
Is, and it's a bit of a shock, you know. So I'm trying to keep myself together.
I understand. Yes, I have this portrait in my family's house of this clown, this like crying clown that was in my grandparents' house because you know, the whole familiarity is yes, so like the end of every show because I you know, since I've been doing this since I was a kid. So every time a shoot finishes, or especially when you're doing a musical for like, yeah, so intense and you're like breaking with a family every time, it's like it's a whole uh, whole thing. It's like a loss in a way.
It is.
The good news with this is that we have already.
I thought we were done a few times, and the joy of life is that we're never done in life.
Yeah, of course, So everyone.
Was like, what's it like to get back together? Well, we were getting back together on.
The set, but we have been together the whole time.
Ye friendships, Yeah, life, thank god, you know what I mean.
It's very special.
The pain is that I love making what we make, so it's sad not to make what we make, of course, like I would make whatever we wanted to make with these people until I die.
Of course, if I was given that choice.
When you find a happy, like fulfilling environment you never wanted to know and far between.
It is true, as much as everyone tries to be that in our industry, it's not always going to Yeah, And I mean, you can have a great time and it cannot turn out well, or.
You can make something incredible that everybody loves and it was a miserable.
Experience exactly, which often is the case.
I find right like it's weird find.
The definitely definitely. Anyway, thank you, thank you. We're having some therapy on the podcast.
What I'm here for.
That much?
All right now, we're going to go back to this episode La de lure Exqueeze, which aired in nineteen ninety nine, which is crazy to say that.
Out loud, right, I mean, I don't know, I was six years old. I realistically probably watched it somewhere like two thousand and NINEY ten got it?
And how did you start to watch?
Was it?
The sisters had it on?
So my sisters watched, especially my oldest sister Smantha, watched it like in real time, and I always knew it sort of in the background of my life, but I was obviously a little mature for me. And then when I was in like, you know, early high school and figuring out who I was as a queer person and developing my own taste and wanting to watch something that I thought was funny and culturally interesting, and it sort
of like came back into my mind. And again because my sisters, it's always there, like they have trivia games and merch and so it's always was there in the back of my head. And so I started to watch it, and then I used to watch it every night before I went to sleep and just burned through the series.
Love it.
And then since then, I'm you know, I can't really count on my hands how many times I've gone through and watched it.
Amazing.
I probably have a lot more memorized than you.
Which is great, And that's what I started to say. Also, the fact that it is now comfort food, comfort watch for people. If you had told us this in the beginning, we never would have believed you. Like for us, you know, people were like so upset with us in the beginning, which people forget now, right they think like, oh, of course it was amazing in the beginning. No, everyone was like, who are these women? Who do they think they are?
I was going to ask if it was how it was received initially because the other show that I always returned to and that I'm obsessed with as Girls, which is sort of like a metaphorical cousin of the show. And yes, you know, I think Lena's brilliant, and it
was sort of a similar thing. I mean, I loved it the first time around, but where I think people are rediscovering it and reappreciating how daring it was interesting and original, And I feel like this is maybe sort of the same thing of like maybe we didn't appreciate quite at the time, like to center these women and the way you were centering them.
I think it was so shocking in the beginning. And really, if you think that this is something I'm thinking a lot about now. Our world has changed so drastically with social media right where literally everyone is a critic and everyone has a platform.
Right back then, there.
Were like a handful of white men critics predominantly, maybe a few others at the big newspapers. This was the thing or the magazines, right, so we knew we had filmed the whole first season before it had aired.
There was no pilot situation. It was just we did.
Film a pilot, and then they took like a year, a year and a half something in my mind, too long to pick it up.
But they did pick it up.
You shot the pilot, went away for a year, So the second episode is a year later.
I got to go rewatch it roughly roughly Sarah's Harrah's Brown in the pilot.
Yes, I remember, yes, now she tells me.
That I might be wrong, But this is like nineteen ninety ninety seven that we filmed the pilot. No one can find the paperwork, like they exist somewhere, and I forgot to ask.
Chris Albrecht was running HBO there.
They were still analog at the time.
We had to wait, Willy and I waited at the test for our very thick contract seven year contracts to be printed by the fax machine because the fax machine broke, and so we had to wait and wait and wait. No one was allowed to go in until you had your your big contract.
You remember the other people that were testing against you.
It was no one. Well, there was one girl who was there testing against me, though I really didn't perceive it that way because in my mind I was one hundred percent Charlotte and no one was going to come close. So I do know another actress who's really wonderful who ended up being on another HBO show, who I do think tested, though she wasn't there, which was good because I didn know her, and that would have been weird.
Parry Reeves. Do you know Perry Reeves? Yeah, yeah, Perry was in the mix.
Would have been perfect and wonderful. But at the time I was like, back everyone up, because I'm getting his part.
As soon as you read it, you were like, this is for me, yes, yes.
But luckily Willy was there, so he was entertaining me and I was not freaking out in the way that I would have been. And and there was a guy there who ended up being he was reading from mister Big, but he ended up being BIG's toxic friend, who would be like that bitch I dinner at I think so is he that there's he has two toxic friends.
He always has a toxic friends exactly.
But this was like the really handsome guy. I cannot remember his name right now. Anyway, he was there, and Willy was there, and then maybe like two other women I think, like a potential Samantha, because I think at that point Kim had said no until people were stressing about that anyway.
Doesn't matter.
It was that, you know, the buildings, the tall buildings in Century City, the twin Yeah, it was when HBO was there.
Wow, I know. So whenever I drive by, I'm.
Like the beginning, the beginning anyway, back to the episode. So we're here, and uh, the idea here is that. First of all, I want to say this, do you know Alison Andrews the director, Alison and Andrews directed this. She was an indie film. This isn't our indie film era. We had an indie film era in the beginning, like Nicole Holofsoner of course, recoize that was our that was our gig for a while.
Cool.
Then we start mixing in the sopranos guys. So we got Ellen Colter, Alan Taylor, you know a bunch of oh my god, Van Patton, Timmy Van Patten, amazing, amazing. So then wed we kind of shift a little bit, and then we get this incredible Charles mcdogal British guy, like amazing. But then we've still got like indie women, which was great. And Allison was one of those gas food logs was big in the nineties and it was like right before this, and I can't remember that much
about it, except that she was so cool. She had tattoos everywhere, and she was She's like like a mommy, like a mommy presence, but funny and offbeat mommy and so.
Like a really well directed episode.
Right, Okay, let's let's talk about the episode.
So this this episode is directed by Alison Anders, and it's written by someone named Allie Levy, and I'm sorry, I don't know who that is. Like sometimes I'm just like I names, I'm like, oh, I don't know who this person was.
Was it like a room and then different people would write.
I think they had a room, and it's Michael Patrick and Oli Levey and they would have a room beforehand. And then when we were working in the beginning, it was Darren and Michael. Then Jenny joined. Soon Cindy comes but not quite yet. I don't think Cyndy shoot pack. And then Cindy and Jenny become executive producers as well, and then slowly we start adding in people that last, right, but I'm sorry, Olie Levy was not one of those people who lasted, or maybe had just been in the
room exactly. So this also we've got some incredible guest stars. Will Arnett very funny, little Babyface, Oh.
My god, really funny, and it's so.
Good, so dreamy, so well cast, so well cast, so well cast. And James Urbaniac. Yeah, I don't know if I'm seeing his name right.
I think it's Urbaniac, thank you so much, or.
Baniac that sounds better.
And weirdly, both of those people end.
Up on the Office.
Oh yeah, isn't that crazy?
That is bizarre?
Another show I love so much.
And I also really like James on Difficult People. If you haven't watch Difficult People, it's a really funny show. Julie Klausner Cole Oh really really like satirical funny.
She's very good at that. So the thing that I find really funny about this, and we're going to be technically rewatching, but I just want to say that, you know, the whole thing with the Internet and the feet.
Yes, uh huh, of course, wiki feet.
I mean all of it right, like to the point where I have some lovely girls I call them my digital girlies, and they come over and help me film stuff for social media and they cut my feet out of everything, and I'm like, why do you guys, it's like the best part of the outphit. Why are you putting my feet out?
They're like, we can't.
We can't put any feet of any of our any of our people on.
And I was like, is that bad? And they were like, yes, is that bad?
The Internet is the show, but it's.
Like an early version of it that this shoe salesman is willing to give Charlotte free shoes if she tries shoes on.
I know.
And then we have this really awkward scene where he's theoretically potentially having experience. Though I remember so much stress about how we were going to do that that it wasn't just going to be awful.
I was going to say, it's very funny, tasteful, uncomfortable. I think it's And James does a.
Really great He does a great, great job.
He does a great, great job. And I do not think I was that nice to him. I'm just really honest. I think that I was not in love with this storyline.
Yeah, you were probably feeling really anxious about it.
I was feeling very anxious and like what are we literally actually doing right now? Like I get the theme of the show, but like like what like what and I remember that, like, you know, he massages my feet at one point. I don't think he I don't know what he wanted or what he didn't want.
Because also I was just like what.
I remember them saying to me, like he's a really big deal in the indie film world, like be nice to him, and I'm like, I'm I'm having trouble, like because to me, and I don't really think of myself at all as a method actor, but like I am.
Very introduced him as this guy exactly.
Yes, by the the storyline, like it's very hard to jump over.
Yeah, well that's your first context for.
Someone, right, and you don't have any other context for them, do you mean it's not like we're hanging out enough in a different setting or whatever. Anyway, I was really stressed, really stressed about this, but I think when I watch it that it works.
It really does work. And also again to bring like only a character that's as pure hearted a naive as Charlotte. Could we watch go through that and be like, oh, you poor thing, Like totally I get why you're saying, Yes, they're gorgeously you know what I mean, like we go on the journey with her.
Well, that was my other thing.
Is like would she say yes? And I mean but the way he plays it too, it's pretty charming. Yeah, it is considering what he's actually asking, like he goes about it in a way that isn't like.
Oh, there's an elegance to him.
Definitely that matches up.
With her that you think, And it doesn't really start to turn that corner until the very end.
That and then it's not as horrific as it could have been.
No, no, no, not at all, not at all. So anyway, thank you.
That was good.
We just did Charlotte storyline. Now, someone else pointed out to me, Samantha doesn't really have a storyline.
No, she kind of opens the episode and then that's it, right, But she's.
Got that whip, which is fantastic. But I think it's important to mention and this is something that one time I was doing one of these and I was like, wait, where's Charlotte storyline? She didn't have one right because we had storyline ABCD. Because there were four of us and the show's only twenty two minutes. It's insane what they were able to get in there.
It's true.
But one thing that I've been watching the development of is that as writers, what they started developing, and it hasn't totally gelled.
In this episode.
We have a theme in this episode that's very very accurate and excellent for the different you know, storylines, But what starts happening as we go is the voiceover. She'll say something like and then uptown and they'll cut to me uptown and downtown. They'll cut to Samantha downtown and you know, on the East Side or whatever. They'll be Cynthia, and they're really really quick and they pull it all together. But we're not totally firing on all those right now.
So some people might have the d storyline, which is very much less and so that would have been Samantha.
But then usually what we're doing is filming two episodes at once so that we can crossboard the locations because in New York the locations are the thing, of course, so we can have one restaurant where we're outside maybe that restaurant, and then inside that restaurant pretend, Yeah, we might pretend it's a different place, so we might dress a corner of the restaurant differently so it doesn't look
so identifiable. And you probably have a good storyline in the other episode if you didn't have a storyline in the one. But it's hard. It's hard when you're watching it, of course to know that or whatever. But it's not like anyone was meaning to leave.
Some mean that just like me, But it's still finding it's it's juice and like exactly, there are those magic episodes where it's like all four stories are really like inherent to the theme and they all feel like really irrevocable from each other.
And the reason in this particular episode that there's not as much time is because the carry and big storyline.
It's a big turning point is massive. It's one of the biggest turn point.
And it is so unbelievably good.
It's really good.
And Sir Jessica, if she hadn't been winning awards, which actually at this point she hadn't been, completely one needs one for this particular episode.
Yeah, really amazing. I mean, let's just start with the meme. You know, it's a very popular meme. Carry out the door with the hat.
Oh well, as well it should be.
And can you believe his reaction.
Like like to, well, that's kind of why they were so exactly because he lets her come to him.
It's so bad.
It makes us hate him.
I hate him so much.
I want her to beat him with.
That when we get it, because we're like, listen.
We've all been there there, We've all been there.
Wanted to be the chaser.
And I didn't know this was.
A meme, but I totally get it.
Oh yeah, it's you'll search it after we do this, Yeah, I will.
I will because her with that outfit, with that whip in that hat is good because.
Then she appears to the door again with the beret and the McDonald's which is also mean, which.
I totally get that one, so and I mean, I get them both. But the thing that's funny with the Big thing is so when I first started with the first season, I'm like, big is so awful. Big is so awful. It was really this huge thing for me because I had never second guessed it ever. Obviously I was in it, but obviously we've all known bigs and or different versions of big.
Of course we are.
Right, it's like very frecking truth, yes, yeah, of course annoying of course. So I'm very identified with Carrie.
Through all of this, right, I mean we all right, right.
And that's why she's such an incredible character, and whoever wants to criticize her can just like whatever.
I think a lot of that comes from people recognizing things within themselves that they don't like that they see mirrored by.
Care how much.
How M sure I love it.
I love heroes that are complicated, much like not to always bring it back to girls, but much like Hannah Horvath on Girls, who's also does a lot of challenging things. But we all do challenging things.
One hundred percent, and it might be hard to accept those sides of ourselves.
But that's a much more interesting person than just absolutely well.
Also, we would never have a show no, Like, have you seen there's some guy on instagram ed or TikTok who is like, this is how people want Carrie to be.
She's like, it's really really funny.
He's like, I'm gonna call my therapist. I'm not going to call my friends to talk to them about Big. I'm gonna call my therapist and I'm not gonna go.
Exactly.
It's really really entertaining. Anyway, Back to the show. Back to the show, So what I love so so so much. So, Okay, we start the show. The first season, I've been like, BIG's awful. That's basically every episode. Then the second the second season, he's amazing.
He starts to come around.
Oh thank god, he's so charming and they're so great together, and I was so happy. Then we have this beginning of this episode, she's there in that outfit and he's just like blah blah, which obviously then is the engine that you know, pushes her to the wall where she finally says all the things she's been wanting to say and realizes her own issues in terms of trying again and again and again to get him to do to.
Be considered in his life in a real way.
Absolutely, Oh my god, you're hired to be here every week, Ben.
But what I love so here.
I am not remembering the episode right and just starting from the top and being like, oh my god, I don't remember being at that bar. This must be the thing that people keep talking to me about. That's nnbar and look at my hair. That's hysterical that I say. She's like, what's your kinking him? Like a king?
My hair?
It's so Charlotte.
It's perfect.
It's so perfect, and I love it so much. Don't remember any of it, amazing, remember all the shoe things. Don't remember that.
You don't remember the spanking, the waiter, you don't remember the guy tied up in the chain.
Nothing. I'm sure it's five am. It might be seven am, like we were all night every night and all those things. I have no memory whatsoever, which is interesting because you think i'd remember that.
No, it kind of makes sense to me that like the things that we would consider to be the like shocking, like oh you must remember this like slacious thing. It's like, no, you probably remember this like two hand or thing that you couldn't get and it was four and the more like.
You definitely, definitely it is true.
It is true.
And also I think because I was, you know, nervous and confused about my own storyline, that I that I that you know that took my attention. And I also do remember the scene that you're talking about where it's the three of us walking and talking because I was so excited to be there because sometimes Charlotte's left out and I was like, I'm here for you, like even when you were doing just like that, if Miranda and Carrie had to walk and talk and be like why
am I not there? And now that I'm rewatching, I realized that the Miranda Carrie storyline of walking and talking is a through line that is so powerful. It is really amazing.
A couple of friends walked a couple of blocks. You just wait, you have so much I mean, I.
Know, right, But also it's because their dynamic is so interesting and Miranda really tells her the truth, like people are like, well, why didn't people stand up to carry They did Miranda especially all the time. So Carrie has this scene where she goes to Big in her incredible outfit and she's trying to be funny and fun and sexy.
The night goes okay, I think they like, they hook up, they sleep together, and then in the morning he just drops the bomb.
That he but he's only going to pairs. She asks him if he will go if he wants to do a Hampden Share, because Charlotte has asked her to do a Hampden Share and he says, oh, I can't because I'm going to Paris, and she's like what. And she's standing on the bed and then she leans forward, which is so cool and interesting because you know, most directors would be like, don't stand on the bed, you know, but this is why the show is so awesome.
Yes.
Right, she's standing on.
The bed in her cute vintage slip which I love so much. And she is so good and so deeply you know, upset and thrown and trying to hold it together.
She's really good at I mean, she's an amazing actor altogether. Yes, she's really good, specifically at receiving information which I always think is a really hard thing information that you know as a person, as human being, you already know that, like making it feel like it's being heard for the first time. Yes, she's expert at that.
She is expert at hearing it and also expert at covering. But also it's just enough covering that the audience is with her.
They know what she's going through it.
Right, It's a very very fine line to walk. And she's amazing. Yeah, I mean I always knew this, but rewatching him like even more, wow, wow, wow.
Okay, then he.
Says, Oh yeah, it might be for years.
He's such a dick.
I'm sorry.
I'm so mad at him.
I know, I get so mad at him.
It's the avoidant. It's the like emotionally unavailable avoidant, like like it's just the way. It's the way. It's first of all, it's not like relationship ending to say, my work is going to take me to Paris, and I think we're in a weird space where I don't know how to handle that and I don't think it's time for you to move, but maybe like it's it's he doesn't have any of that language. It's just like I have to be able to just throw things out and like do what I.
Want, right, I'm going to do it absolutely absolutely. He doesn't take her into consideration in any way, shape or form, which is why she does what she does the rest of the episode, which thank god, right, thank god. Okay, oh wait, I have to I have to bring up Stanford for a second.
Of course, love my storyline so much, so much, and you know, I was like young queer person figuring myself out and doing my first dating and stuff and what so like to see it's just like a regular sweet like not mister perfect superhero man, like go out and try to like have an experience like that. It was so wonderful.
And it's like.
Before the apps, right, so he's online.
I know it's like proto apps.
I know it's the cute big tool for you, big tool for you.
Oh my god, It's so good. And the way that Willy does it is just.
So sweet, so sweet. He just wants connection.
I know, he just wants connection.
And he's intimidated, which I understand so much from a straight woman, but also from a gay man obviously many gay man friends, and the pressure is re.
Oh my god, of course, especially the body stuff, like specifically having it be a story where he has to He's like, in order to have this experience, he got a strip down and just bear it all and then he has a really great, like flirty encounter. It's just like so affirming. It's really so.
Affirming and beautiful in the way he does it is just so good. And another thing that I didn't really realize at the time, because Willie was straight and stressed sometimes about how to play Stanford. I think he'd be okay with me saying this. I hope so he and I were going to do a rewatch podcast. I know, yes, the week that we decided to do and just like that, we were supposed to sign our contract. Wow, I know we stuf cry together. It's gonna be bad.
I'm gonna have trouble's he's around, I know.
So we were gonna do a rewatch podcast, which would have been so much fun. Yeah, but he was really worried because he thought he was going to get in trouble because he had like no filter in life.
I don't did you get to work with him?
No? I just admire him from this but never.
Oh oh my god, oh my god. Incredible human being and funny and cutting, like super smart and cutting in life that comes across. Yeah, I mean, Stanford is incredibly sweet. Comparabily, Willy was sweet, but like could also like cut to the bone, do you know what I mean? Sounds Oh,
love it, love it, love it. So we were going to do this podcast together and he he had said to me after we ended up doing and just like that instead, basically it seemed too weird to do both at the same time, and we didn't think we'd have time, which is true. And I didn't know that Willy was sick at the time that Willy knew, and he he said to me one of the things he was worried about was that when he signed on to play Stanford, in his mind, Stanford was gay, but it wasn't the
whole like essence of him. He was in this world equals yeah. And then there were times he felt that certain people encouraged him to be more flamboyantly gay than he had wanted to be originally. And there was a person's that Stanford was based on who was in our world and would come to our parties and stuff, who you know, I ever would have ever known was gay. And I think he was like a lawyer or something like he was, you know, Stanford's a manager vaguely of models or whatever, vaguely.
The perfect underwear man.
Exactly, the boner maybe something like this. But this guy was not in any way flamboyantly gay. And the idea was that Stanford was based on him in some vague way. And so Willie's struggle in the beginning was that sometimes people he felt would come up to.
And be like, gay it up, gay it up, and he felt like is that right? Is that wrong?
I don't know what to do and he was worried about talking about that because he didn't want to like ruin Stanford for people or make people uncomfortable about it. But when I look back on his performance, to me, it's just the most beautiful balance.
Yeah, I think it's so well calibrated, right, and I'm not you know, it's I think it's like a It's like a snowflake in terms of the whole like queer people playing queer people, straight people think queer people. I think it's case by case. Clearly there was plenty of quer people in the creative like space making this feel like a real person and writing him as a real person. Clearly Willy's coming out of with a lot of talent
and humanity. Like in this case, I see it as such a positive representation of somebody who's also like, you know, a neurotic and nabushy like me. So obviously I connect to him, but just in terms of like an actual person who's not just you know, I love a starky gay assistant who's there to just be a starky gay assistant. But but Stanford's like a whole person, So I really I couldn't agree more.
I'm so glad. I'm so glad You're the first person I felt safe to talk about this time.
I'm so glad. We should do this once a week.
Me too, I mean, I really, I really like because he's not in the show enough in the beginning, right, like he comes and then he goes, and usually I'm just like awed by just looking at his beautiful young self, you know, and remembering him. But this episode, because the storyline is so beautifully written.
I love the two of them in the apartment. I'm drinking the Martiniz and him being honest about it with Sarah Jisica just like and you can with my girlfriends, you know, all they're.
Friends from like when they're in their twenties and you so feel it and she can't stop laughing.
It's so adorable, it is.
I'm so glad it's on film.
Me too. Isn't it a beautiful It is that that that girl and gay best friend relationship is a very sacred.
Special thing, sacred special thing, and it was.
Like Anthony, but that's not absolutely.
But they all matter, of course, you know, And they're all different versions and they're all real to us and we all have them, thank God, in our lives and it's so important, so important. Okay, I'm gonna really try it to cry, I don't know about it. Okay, let's get to carry and big because it's super important. This whole episode is so incredible and I so relate to Carrie, and I so.
Think Sir Jessica is just seking brilliant.
Yeah, I agree, like.
So incredibly brilliant. And at this point in her life she's happily married to Matthew, so he even still like awes me the depth that she's pulling from, you know, and when she throws that hamburger, which we're not, I mean, it's so good.
Oh God, Fish, yes, Li Big Mac Yes.
And I love Alison Andrews for making us all feel so comfortable. What I see when I look at this episode is all of us feeling very safe and comfortable and settled into our part at this point in the second season.
And audience wise, you feel wish you always to a certain extent you do, but particularly in this episode, like in the room with people like in very into because the show has a lot of style, so sometimes the like sharpness in the style can can create like a bit of remove and in a way that's I think intended. But a lot of these like more messier emotional moments, like in this episode, like I felt very like let in.
One hundred percent let in and out. I think a lot of that is Alison. Yeah, I think she's she was so chill and laid back, and I can see that in Sarah, Like there's a there's a take where Sarah's got her computer but her legs are on either side and the cameras behind her, Like it's creative and fun, and Sarah Jessica loves that stuff, you know, like give her props, give let her do weird things with their body, Like she's.
So does how to make a space feel like she really lives in that space because she's.
A very physical actor. You know, she's intellectual and physical.
It's very interesting. It's very very interesting.
It's so interesting to watch your friends, Yeah, you know, because you.
Know them, right, that's the bast I mean, especially watching
a friend you love and respect. Like I made this movie Theater Camp with Noah, with my husband being part of the you know, the cut process of that and you know, shooting and like just watching him work, like it can be a really challenging thing when you're watching a friend or your person when there's not a belief in them or like there's there's like a criticis you know what I mean, where it's like it's not a talent that you really believe in because it's that that's
how it makes that line is hard. But there's nothing more special than like someone you love as a person and you can really admire that there's have a special ability.
Oh absolutely, absolutely.
Okay, So well here we are. We're with We're with Carrying Big, We're with krriying Big. Oh wait, should we talk about we should talk about the Will Arnett because that's a pretty funny storyline, so good and so New York.
New York. But I know what you're saying about the episode sort of like that story I could kind of go anywhere totally. It's just its own little pocket.
It's not totally a game. It's kind of a game so funny. It's so funny. He wants to have sex and public places. So they meet at a bookstore basically the strand on the street talking about biography. So he takes her to where Mark Twain wrote, which I think we all know is New Yorkers. Like it's yes, right there, We've all been there. I've never had sex there, and he wants to have sex there, which is funny. And then they have sex in a cab. That's a bit
of a stretch for me. Yes, which is very, very very Cynthia though she wouldn't be having sex in the cab, but she is very directing of this.
Of course, drivers we can suspend this belief for the show that they somehow made it happen in the back of the cab.
I mean, look, I'm sure people have. Of course, I have definitely made out in a one of the best places to.
Make up, definitely, but not the rest.
She's a great on camera maker out her Cynthia will say, I think she's amazing.
She has no fear, she's not concern.
And sometimes anxiety provoking away from.
Me as her friend.
Of course, yeah, I would be like, is anyone protecting her hearing because there's no intimacy coordinators as we know back in the day, just whatever, and she's like, yes, I'll do it. Yes, my feet are dirty, I don't care film them. I'm like, didn't have anyone have a what one? Come on? Anyway? That's me, that's me and I play Charlotte as very clear, very clear. Okay, So here we are. We're Stanford confesses to carry about the cyber.
Sex, which is so cute.
On the internet.
Big tool for you.
We've gone over all that. Then they have U. I'm back at the shoe store and his name is Buster, which is kind of hysterical, like Buster Brown. I don't know if anyone will get that reference at this point, but.
I know Buster Brown. But why Buster Brown in this?
They make shoes?
Ah, okay, the youngsters.
This is like from the forties. Okay, don't ask me why we did that. But all right, I'm getting free shoes. He's charming but slightly ew but that's okay. Then we have this adorable walk and talk. I'm wearing my own shirts for some reason. Really, that's another thing I'm thinking about you beginning. Yeah, we didn't have a lot of budget. You can see that it's getting better. The fashion is getting better. But like sometimes I would go shopping and
I'd be like, I want Charloe to wear this. So then I just take it, you know, and try to like it's a work in progress. Being pat figuring Charlotte out and being able to afford Charlotte.
Yeah. Basically, Charlotte has very expensive taste, very.
Expensive taste, and I'm wearing this beautiful necklace. It's a butterfly, it's got rubies, it's a vintage necklace. I wore it a lot. And then at the end of the season, we're still trying to get press, which I know is insane to think about now, I know, crazy, Yes, but we had to try. Anyone who would talk to us. We'd be like, sure, ask us anything, do We'll do anything.
Like at one point they were like, tell us your worst dates, which I unabashedly did, and Cynthia Nixon called me and she was like, why did you tell them that story? Only as I don't know, I felt like I had to tell them something. She's like, don't ever tell that story again.
I'm like, okay, okay, Well now it's like the currency, you know, not to get off topic, but in terms of like press tours and stuff, it's like that becomes more important than the movie. It's one stories are you're telling and are you cool on camera? And I know, is it viral? And is it is it the like what about the what about the movie?
Yes, totally true.
I feel like we were on the like the forefront of that happening totally, but we understood because they were trying to relate it to the show. You know what I'm saying, like you as people, which is the lasting power of the show, right, But then you're also giving up your personal stories to whoever it is who's going to present it however they're going to present it. I think now the good news is you have more control because you have your own social media, et cetera.
I'm only asked like a few fan questions, but how far into it was like being yourself around New York like not no longer possible, you know what I mean?
Yes, I do know what you mean. I would say in my mind, I don't remember getting difficult till third season. In my my third season is when we boomed. Other people seem to feel that we were already the I didn't personally feel that. I mean, I had been on Melrose Place before that, right, which had its own kind of culty kind of following, So I had some of that that would follow me.
Wherever I was.
But I mean, like you became like emblems of New York.
So it's true, and people always would say, oh, you know, no one in New York cares about actors.
I'd be like, not really true, not really true.
But that was because we were in New York's show and they felt like we were theirs, you know. But I also feel now, well, no, it's different. Like in La I learned where to go and where not to go. Right, Like Brentwood really easy. There's a lot of actors in Brentwood.
It was cool, so segment, Like in New York, it's sort of like you're out, You're out.
Yeah, you're out.
Absolutely.
But there was a time where I realized I cannot walk down Madison Avenue and that kind of sucked, you know what I mean. But like if I walked.
Down I know, like if I walked.
Down Madison Avenue, if I actually wanted to window gaze or shop or whatever, I couldn't get anywhere, you know what I mean.
It was frustrating.
Yeah, it was totally fine. I just had to be creative, you know what I mean. There was one time and then I'm gonna have.
To get back to the show because you're too fun.
There was one time we were shooting somewhere near Barney's and Sara Jessica said.
Hey, do you want to go shoe shopping online? And I was like definitely.
She said, let's leave our security behind. I was like, okay, this is later when we got security. At this point in time, we don't. We're just out there. Our trailers would be on the street with our characters' names. And one day someone knocked on my door and I thought it was an ad so I opened the door and it was some guy fan ish type person saying ask and I was like, I shouldn't be talking. Yeah, it
was like kind of cuckoo. We changed all that as time went, but the time that they're just going to go to Barney's, we thought we could lose our security guys. We each had one at that point. Q was mine, loving very much.
Khalid was hers.
And she told Khalid she was going to have lunch in her trailer and he could go have lunch, and then she snuck over to mine and we went, but Q followed us at a distance and we didn't know. But it was a good thing because we get the Barneys at lunch time and we're trying to try shoes.
So stupid, right.
So dumb. It's lunch hour in New York City at Barney's is packed with women and there's just a crowd.
Around, of course, and you're trying.
I know, it's so stupid.
And at one point Q was hiding behind a pole and we just see him like do you need me? Like yes, just so we could get out of the building. Joes, I know, right, And Barney, I mean it was fun.
We were just trying to be girls for a minute, parties, I know.
Okay, back to the all the episode.
Okay, oh my god, you're too much fun.
Okay, Charlie, she's sure, we're good with that. I want to get too.
Big because this, to me is the fight at the end.
Yes, So basically Carrie talks to us many times about And this is when I think about the narcissistic Carrie situation, right where for like a couple of years, it seemed like everyone just wanted to criticize Carry for being narcissistic. To me, first of all, I don't think she's narcissistic.
I think that we're hearing everybody is a little bit.
Let's just say that.
Let's say she's not more so, yes.
And she's like twisting herself to try to be what he wants her to be. Exactly, which is, you know, kind of a selfless thing to do.
Exactly.
I'm misguided, but yes, but we.
All do this.
I have done this right. But also I think as if you were part of the reason you feel like carry's narcissistic is because you're hearing Carrie's thoughts, yeah, which I don't think people think about, like you're her head.
Were getting the whole internal monologue, right, So it's like if we were hearing that for each girl, we probably say the.
Same exactly, because everyone's internal monologue is narcissistic, that's kind of yeah.
And she becomes like such an omnipotent narrator that she's sort of like helping us craft our judgments of what's happening with the other.
Absolutely.
Absolutely, that's a great point.
Thank you.
Never thought about that. Thank you so much.
So in this particular episode, she's like almost sending herself up in terms of like there's all these quick cuts where she's like talking to me and talking to Smith and talking to Marda and yeah.
And big and I just kept trying to be what do you want?
Like, She's just going on and on and on, and it's actually really really funny because it's like an exaggeration of what everyone complained about later on.
Whatever.
The first reaction is that like her banging the table and the diner with you guys, and I believe I'm here again. Yes, And then she does like the one she like calls him drunk and like, you know, makes the wrong move and then does the one ady of like being embarrassed and feeling ashamed about that. And so then she's back with you guys and being like, actually, you know what, like one am, it's Paris, Like it'll be great, Like I'll go visit him.
She's taking because that's what Charlotte said. Originally it was like, where's a big deal you can go to Paris. Yes, she does her.
She goes through her seven stages while waiting for him to come back. It's like we all spiral exactly that same way.
That's so right.
Does she call him in this episode?
Yes, when she gets drunk with Stanford, Yeah, and the scene that I love God you've watched and then she she she calls him and it's like, you know, four am in Paris, and she likes saying like a real thing, and it is like trying to be like, you're not considered. She's trying to say what she did later says, which
is like you can't factor me in your life. Yes, but because she's d young, it just doesn't come out well and she she gets really embarrassed by it, and then and exactly and so suddenly she's like, oh, am I going to lose him? And so let me, let me try to reframe this. And then she's with you guys walking and she's like, you're right, like like this, what am I freaking out about? Like what's the worst
thing about going to Paris with your boyfriend? Just like doing her own like mental gymnastics to try to make it work with this guy who's giving her like nothing.
I haven't all been there so much. So and then he comes back. So that's when she comes in her adorable beret, her French outfit. Someone asked me how did Paris become this through line with them? And I think it's all just because we all love Paris. I mean I would have to ask Michael Batrick because I.
Think the first time we hear about it, this is the.
Beginning of what's going to be a very, very very long through line of Paris. Yes, I don't even want to say it ends exactly for decades. It's so important.
But who doesn't love Paris of coury.
I just went in the spring with my husband, the first like adult proper trip there of my family and I was a kid, but yeah, so dreaming.
We just went there all together to promote and just like that.
Oh, that's so fun.
It was incredible. It was incredible. It was incredible. So he comes back, she's wearing her beret, she has the match fish, and she apologizes, and she tells him that she thinks they can make it work and that they can have phone sex if he asked to move to Paris, which is hysterical. Yeah, which is also funny.
Very funny in terms of and just like that, oh yeah, of course, okay, yeah, yeah yeah.
And then he tells her something to the effect of, I don't want you to move to Paris because you're expecting something.
Yeah.
It literally makes me want to kill him.
It's I don't want you to uproot your life and expect anything, right, It's like, excuse me, tall.
It's so after the mental gymnastics, after all that she emotionally has gotten through to try to get to that point to say it can work. He's like, but don't expect anything.
This is the thing with Big It's like, it's like it's one thing to be emotionally unavailable but be able to articulate that you have that shortcoming, and it's another thing to not have any words for it and to just be abusive.
Exactly.
It's so at which point she takes back and smashes it against the wall, which you know, hallelujah that she does it right.
Satisfying.
It's very satisfying, and he deserves that and so much more, really, and then she says something like, I don't know if she says this to him. Does she say, why is it so hard for you to factor into your.
Lives in any real way?
Kills me?
And he has no good answer.
Really no, because he doesn't deserve her.
No, he does not. And then she said, you said you said you love me, and he said I do. It's like the why is it hurt so much? And we're back to Ludolor squeeze.
We are and then and this made me upset and I didn't remember this. Then we cut to Stanford and we have some other scenes, but then he comes to her door in the middle of the night and she lets him in.
I didn't remember the ending.
Yes, she lets him in and they have sex.
They have this like unspoken goodbye, right, And I'm like, oh.
No, because I personally don't believe in goodbye sex.
I do not think you should have goodbye sex.
I don't think I ever have.
I think I have, and I didn't know it.
Is it goodbye sex? If you don't know it's goodbye.
They know it and you don't. Do you know what I'm saying, because I'm Charlotte, right, it's some level, do you know what I mean? So I'm thinking that this must mean it's going to be good now that we're okay, But it doesn't mean that it's like good by sex, which is awful.
Yeah, it's honest, but it's awful.
I don't think it's honest if you don't say it.
I just mean like, of course she of course they would want like there was no closure, and he has no ability to give them any closure because he's such he has just like no, you know, he's a lot of growing to do totally, and so if if this is the only kind of closure that's being offered, like I would, I would understand, do you I mean I do if I was Carrie and I was in that kind of a web.
Yes, she has a lot more understanding than I, personally Kristen would ever have in that moment, because then she's sitting there in her fantastic black bra in the morning, and he says, what are you doing over there? And she's she's sitting there and me hearing her voice over that she feels tied to the chair and she can't get up because she knows it's over, yeah, and that she wants He says, come back, and she says, well,
I want to, but I can't. It's so good, really good, And I so admire her Carrie's understanding, but also Sarah Jessica's abilities in that scene to convey such emotion without conveying it on her face.
Yeah do you mean?
Hm, like you can feel it all. But she's not exhibiting it for him, you know what I'm saying. She's protecting herself in the scene.
But you as a viewer, No, were the this is my other fan question, I promise the last year, right, No, were the voiceovers already recorded so that like you know, in the middle of the scene, someone say something and then you'll take time to think while we hear Sarah say something, and then the like she has to then match the timing once the cut's already there.
Yes, So basically when you'd read the script, they'd be.
There, so we know what's being said, Yeah, we just don't hear it yet correct.
And then she would go later and you'd have to ask Michael Patrick and Sarah And I think I should ask them at some point how often they changed them Mm hmm.
Do you know mean that would be interesting once you see what you have. Yeah, But that's what I was gonna say, Especially in this moment at the end, it's like there's such a good synergy between like what she knows we're hearing and what she's giving to him, right.
But I think a lot of that is her incredible abilities, you know, and incredibly deep thinking on where Carrie's at and what Carrie's doing, and the sinking between Michael Patrick
and her and Darren too. I can't remember at what point he's how active he is at this point, but like even still ongoing, like they have a lot of private conversations about about this and kind of planning and discussing, and Michael Patrick was always very including to all of us, like, even if none of us have credits except for Sarah at this point, and I think she's just executive consultant.
Which is kind of a made up title, you know.
But even when we had no titles, he would always come to us and say, this is the arc, and this is what I'm thinking, and this is where I want you to be thinking about going emotionally, and you know, very inclusive in terms of that, which is an actor so helpful. And then sometimes it would change, but as a character, you didn't know that change was coming, so
it was actually great. Yeah, yeah, and you call you like, yeah, I was supposed to have a baby when Miranda's also having a baby, and then it didn't, I know, and then it didn't.
That would have been such a different timeline, I know. I mean, I love what it ended up being, but I mean too.
But at the time I was really mad at him, so I was like, no, she wants this, She's got ahead. What do you mean because I couldn't separate right from myself.
You have such love and empathy for her, you want her to get what she wants, and she wanted it, so it was even more exactly it.
Worked out as it should.
But he originally the idea was to contrast how that you would mother. Yeah, and then what he said to me, right, we still got that eventually, definitely.
And when he said to me, when you're at the.
Bar talking about motherhood, yes, I love that.
Seems so much.
Yes, But at the time he said to me, because I don't think any of our other writers, all of whom were women, by the time we get to those storylines, no one had children yet. And he said to me, we don't have enough storyline to do two because we don't have kids yet.
That's good to be us about writing. What you know is a good right, it's a good thing, exactly.
You're such a joy.
Thank you so much. This has been like my dream, so fun, and thank you for answering all my questions.
Let me interview you are a font of knowledge and I so appreciate it.
And you're going to need the formative very special gift. This show has brought a lot of community in I know, another like another show for you to be on sounds good internet.
Have you ever met Michael Patrick?
Uh randomly, I think I got a restaurant. Got it justin said, you know, I'm a huge fan, but not we've never really sat down.
Well, I'm keeping a list. Let's just make sure we officially ask you.
Are you a Charlotte.
Oh I'm very much as.
Because how many people have written a song basically based on their on their charlotteness.
Yeah, I think I kind of win the crown.
I think you totally do well done, well done, well done, Thank you for being here.
Oh I got of course.
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