Sarah Jessica Parker Almost Left Sex & the City After The First Episode

Carrie Bradshaw almost never existed — at least not as we know her now. Speaking to her Sex and the City co-star Kristin Davis on the Are You a Charlotte? podcast, Sarah Jessica Parker revealed that she “panicked” when HBO picked up SATC for a full season. In fact, she even tried to exit the series, leaving Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte without their most stylish BFF.

“When the show was picked up, I was like, ‘I can't be on a TV show! I don't think I'm suited for that life,’” she told Davis on the May 15 episode. Parker had already done her fair share of TV on shows like Equal Justice and Square Pegs, an experience she said “kind of depressed [her].” Therefore, she was hesitant to return to the small screen. “I think that it was the idea of doing the same thing over and over and over again,” she explained.

At the time, Parker’s goal was to “bounce around” from short TV stints to plays and movie roles. “So the idea of a television series meant that I couldn't do all those things,” she said. She later realized that actors “can still do [other] things on their hiatuses,” but at the time, Parker’s fear resulted in her attempting to get out of her contract and leave SATC at first.

“I said, ‘I will give my services to HBO to fulfill my contract. So, any movies, I'll do for X number of years,’” she recalled.

How SJP Was Convinced To Do SATC

However, two people convinced Parker to give TV another chance with SATC, starting with her agent. “He said, ‘It can be wonderful. It can be great.’ And the beauty of HBO [at the time] was that it was kind of an unknown species,” she said. “Then [former HBO chairman] Chris Albrecht said, 'Do it for a year, and if you don't want to do it anymore, we don't do it.’”

It didn’t take long for Parker to embrace TV life. “The location was up the street from my house,” she recalled. “I remember thinking, ‘I can walk to work. I'm not driving on to a lot. I'm not getting on a freeway and hoping I get myself there.’ And I walked up to the location and I never looked back.”

Parker starred in six seasons of SATC, winning two Emmys and filming two feature films after the series wrapped in 2004. Over two decades later, Parker is still stepping into Carrie Bradshaw’s Manolo Blahnik heels on HBO Max’s reboot And Just Like That..., which premieres its third season on May 29.