Taglines: Get carried away.
Sex and the City: The Movie storyline. After moving in together in an impossibly beautiful New York apartment, Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big make a rather arbitrary decision to get married. The wedding itself proves to be anything but a hasty affair–the guest list quickly blooms from 75 to 200 guests, and Carrie’s simple, label-less wedding gown gives way to an enormous creation that makes her look like a gigantic cream puff.
An upcoming photo spread in Vogue puts the event–which will take place at the New York Public Library–squarely in the public eye. Meanwhile, Carrie’s girlfriends–Samantha, the sexpot; Charlotte, the sweet naïf; and Miranda, the rigid perfectionist–could not be happier. At least, they couldn’t be happier for Carrie. Charlotte still has the unrealized hope of getting pregnant.
Samantha is finding a loving, committed relationship more grueling than she could have imagined. Miranda unwittingly lets her own unhappiness–created when Steve admits to cheating on her just once–spoil Carrie’s. After a heated encounter with Steve, she happens to spot Mr. Big and tells him he’s crazy to get married. She’s really only thinking of her own marriage. But her angry remark gets Mr. Big to thinking.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon are reprising their roles from the original HBO series. The show’s longtime executive producer, Michael Patrick King, is set to write and direct. Additionally, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler and Jason Lewis will return as the women’s love interests. Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) has also joined the cast of the film and will play Carrie Bradshaw’s assistant, a new character to be introduced in the film.
Sex and the City is coming to the big screen in a feature film adaptation of the hit HBO television series. The film will follow the continuing adventures of the series four main characters – Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda – as they live their lives in Manhattan four years after the series ended. Stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon are all on board to reprise their roles, while the film will be written and directed by Michael Patrick King, who executive produced the original television series.
Additionally, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler and Jason Lewis will return as the women’s love interests. Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) has also joined the cast of the film and will play Carrie Bradshaw’s assistant, a new character to be introduced in the film. Sex and the City is scheduled for a May 30th release. Strap on your Manolos and grab a cupcake and a Cosmopolitan. Those four fabulous New Yorkers – Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte – are back and coming to the big screen in the feature film Sex and the City, based on one of the most talked about series of all time.
About the Production
The series Sex and the City debuted in 1998 on HBO and ran for six illustrious seasons before the finale in 2004. The series earned 50 Emmy nominations during its run, winning seven, including acting nods for Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon. The series also won 2 Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series and was nominated for 24 Golden Globes, winning eight, including Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy and acting awards for Parker and Kim Cattrall.
But before it hit the small screen, Sex and the City was a series of autobiographical newspaper columns in The New York Observer by author Candace Bushnell. Darren Star, the creator and executive producer of such iconic television shows as “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place,” saw immediate potential in Bushnell’s writings about sexual politics among New York’s social set. “I read those articles and I thought, `wow, this is a great window into New York,’” Star recalls. “I just loved the character of a single woman who is writing about herself and exploring the city and the nature of relationships at the same time.” Bushnell later compiled her columns into a book, which became a bestseller when it was published in 1996.
With the start of the series, Star also asked Michael Patrick King, the man who would go on to executive produce the series as well as eventually write and direct the feature film, to join the series as a writer and as co-executive producer. “Darren knew that Michael brought something that was very unique in terms of his skills as a writer,” says Sarah Jessica Parker, who returns in the role of Carrie and also serves as a producer on the film. “That was just our good fortune and Darren’s smarts.”
In writing for the series, King concentrated on developing the characters of the four women. He offers, “Miranda’s the sarcastic, sort of angry, one. Charlotte’s the sweeter, sort of preppy one, the more traditional one. Samantha’s the sexy, sort of power-hungry one. And then, there’s Carrie, the indefinable one. From there, everything grew. You figure out their sense of humor, on and off screen. And then each year of the series we became more and more connected, like a relationship, as the girls grew and the relationships between the actresses and the writers and directors grew.”
Once the series began to air on HBO, audiences fell in love with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, and discussions about the previous night’s episode became regular water cooler talk all over America. “It was not at all what any of us expected,” says Kristin Davis, who reprises the role of Charlotte. “You never expect something to be as successful and go for as long as we got to go. We had just a really incredible time.”
“The success of the show stemmed from a lot of things,” adds Cynthia Nixon, who again plays Miranda. “It starts with the writing. It’s really clever and heartfelt writing. People watch the show over and over, the same episode five, ten times because it’s so jam-packed full of content. Not just jokes – ideas. And I think the actors are wonderful.”
“It was about women joining together as the new family, girlfriends sticking together through thick and thin” adds Kim Cattrall, who returns as Samantha. “And those relationships are what made the show so popular.”
“The show was successful because there was a void that needed to be filled,” adds Michael Patrick King. “And that was, someone had to speak out for single women, someone going through life alone in a society that says everybody should be together. And then in the show, subliminally and sometimes not so subliminally, is the other voice that is saying, `Be smart, strong! Follow your own road!’”
By the time Sex and the City ended its run on HBO, its audience had grown exponentially with new fans discovering the series on DVD and in syndication. In 2004, the series aired its last original episode, preceded by a media blitz befitting its huge following and its place in the cultural lexicon. Even those with only a passing knowledge of the show knew that it featured independent, smart, sophisticated, single women with a taste for Manolo strappy sandals, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes and the crispest Cosmopolitans that the newest Big Apple hot spots had to offer.
Reuniting the creators and cast in a feature film seemed a natural next step in the story of the four women. For Sex and the City star and producer Sarah Jessica Parker, there was no question that anyone other than Michael Patrick King would write the story for the film. “Of course there would be nobody else to tell it, I knew he could do it,” she states. “He’s a really gifted romantic comedy writer, and I just felt like I couldn’t do it without him.”
“I got to fall in love with four women for many, many years, and hold them in my heart, even when we weren’t doing the series,” King continues. “I got to be in love with these four women for whom I actually created their voices. It’s rare to get that kind of a love affair going with people.”
The script that King ultimately wrote has a universal theme that touches Carrie, as well as her girlfriends. “The series was really about the search for love,” says King. “And I think the movie’s about what happens when you find it. It’s about women in relationships, and their friendships.”
“Some love stories aren’t epic novels – some are short stories. But that doesn’t make them any less filled with love.” — Carrie Bradshaw
Michael Patrick King’s script for the movie opens up in present day, four years after we last saw Carrie and her friends. And, as happens with time, their lives have all changed.
Still working out of her Upper East Side apartment, Carrie is no longer writing her newspaper column. “She is a sometimes contributor to Vogue,” explains Sarah Jessica Parker about her character. “She’s working on her fourth book – the three previous were best-sellers. So she’s experiencing New York City in a different way. It’s the first time she’s been wise and smart enough and prudent enough to save money. She’s much more of an adult.” Carrie’s new maturity extends to her love life; she is at last in a stable relationship with Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth.
“Sarah Jessica Parker is a phenomenal muse for a writer,” King says. “When you want her to be a star, she’s a star. And yet she also has the ability to be the one who wasn’t chosen. She can do the full range of what people tend to do in life. Sarah Jessica is also really smart; the character would never have worked if she wasn’t able to project that kind of intellect. Other than that, she is hilarious, really sensual and pretty, and with a deep well of emotion.”
Producer John Melfi has high praise for Parker’s abilities both in front of and behind the camera. “She has an absolute ability to be completely in the moment as an actor, and so she can literally jump between roles like I’ve never seen,” Melfi describes. “She can go from Carrie here. Then the camera stops rolling, and she’s focused on being a producer.”
Over on Park Avenue, Charlotte, played by Kristin Davis, is living her dream come true. After years of dreaming of love and motherhood, she and her mensch of a husband Harry (Evan Handler) are proud parents to Lily, a darling little girl they adopted from China. With her newfound happiness comes a change in Charlotte, according to Davis. “Because she has so much of what she wants, she’s kind of focused on other people.”
Surprisingly, Kim Cattrall’s Samantha, who once prided herself on her sexual conquests, is also in a committed relationship, though on the opposite coast. Having bravely battled breast cancer, Samantha has followed her actor boyfriend Smith (Jason Lewis) in his career move to Los Angeles. She now lives in a beautiful beach house in Malibu, but she misses her life back in New York. “Her girlfriends are getting married and having babies,” says Cattrall. “There is that feeling of being left behind, not just distance-wise.”
Back in Brooklyn, Miranda, played by Cynthia Nixon, also feels cut off from her beloved Manhattan. Having settled down with her husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), and their son Brady, Miranda is experiencing the pressures of modern life. “She’s just exhausted,” explains Nixon. “Just like a working mother, she’s extended in five different directions.”
Actress Candice Bergen also returns as Carrie’s chilly editor at Vogue, Enid Frick. “Enid is very, very professional, very careerist,” says Bergen, who played Enid in several episodes of the series. “She’s very devoted to her work, and very much in need of a life outside of her work, I would say,” the actress laughs. Bergen’s working relationship with Michael Patrick King dates from her hit comedy series Murphy Brown, where King started his writing career. “I love Michael so much,” she says. “It’s always a pleasure to get to work with him.”
In addition to the familiar faces returning from the series, one new character stands out: Louise, a young woman Carrie hires to work as her assistant, played by Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson. Hudson had not been a regular viewer of Sex and the City, so when she heard about the role of Louise, she happily delved into her research. “And I have not stopped watching it since,” she laughs. “I’m addicted – I’m in love with it.”
When Carrie, newly flush from success as an author, hires Louise to work as her assistant, the young woman proves to be a godsend, bringing some order to Carrie’s rather disorganized life. Hudson describes Louise as family-oriented, and recently relocated to New York. “Louise is a twenty-five year old girl from St. Louis who moves to New York to find love,” she says. “She believes in love. And what greater message is there than to spread love?”
In a show about four single women in New York City, the men in their lives tend to come and go. However, their importance to the story is not to be underestimated. “The men are the unsung heroes of Sex and the City, because without the men to react to there would have been no tide,” explains Michael Patrick King. “There would have been no punch or pull.”
Chris Noth reprises the role of Mr. Big, Carrie’s longtime romantic ideal throughout her various romantic entanglements. During the series, “Mr. Big was the holy grail,” King laughs. “It’s important that Carrie had somebody she couldn’t figure out.” In the film, Mr. Big is, at long last, Carrie’s fiancé.
“Chris is a wonderful, wonderful actor,” King continues. “Something about when he becomes Mr. Big is so compelling that people wanted it to work with Carrie. Or they wanted to punch him. Or they wanted her to get away from him…”
“Men love him,” adds Sarah Jessica Parker. “They’ll say to me, `You’re not going to do something awful to Mr. Big, are you? And women of course swoon because he’s that guy. He’s worth every argument, every fight. And there’s just nobody in the world I would have wanted to do this with other than Chris.”
“The chemistry that Sarah Jessica and I had was invaluable,” Chris Noth agrees. “She and I, in playing together and having a simpatico relationship and a certain chemistry, allowed the relationship to go a lot of different places.”
David Eigenberg returns as Steve Brady, Miranda’s husband and the father of her young son. After several unsuccessful relationships, “Steve is the one who got into her heart and was a grownup with her,” King says. “David Eigenberg is authentic. He is New York.”
“Steve is a stand-up guy,” says Eigenberg about his character. “He’ll do anything for the people he loves. Miranda and Steve are two true-blues. They’re a great love story.”
Completing Miranda’s family circle, young Joseph Pupo, no longer a baby, reprises the role of Miranda and Steve’s son, Brady.
On the heels of a failed marriage, Charlotte had an unlikely flirtation with her uncouth yet decent divorce lawyer Harry Goldenblatt, which developed into something more. Evan Handler returns in the role of Harry, who King describes as “the opposite of the preppy dream. Evan is so important because Harry to me had to be literally all heart, and all acceptance. He’s like a peasant king, an easygoing, supportive husband.
Handler also describes Harry as someone with “not all the social graces that Charlotte York was used to,” but was “someone whose spirit and soul she couldn’t resist.”
Meanwhile, Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones took great pride in her liberated attitude toward sex, bedding as many men as suited her. However, she is now in a monogamous committed relationship with Smith Jerrod, played by Jason Lewis.
According Lewis, Smith accepts Samantha for who she is. “What defines him is his openness, his willingness to accept somebody for who they are without judgment.” Smith’s devotion to Samantha was tireless; their sex life was robust, but he also cared for her during her bout with cancer.
Another man in the girls’ lives is Anthony Marentino, played by Mario Cantone, who originally joined the Sex and the City family as Charlotte’s wedding planner. Cantone, who has known Michael Patrick King ever since they both performed as stand-ups at the Improv in the 1980s, credits Sex and the City for dealing with sexual mores in a new and groundbreaking way. “It was never like, `oh, he’s gay,’ or `she likes to have sex with a lot of men,’ or `she’s kind of prudish and neurotic.’ It was all just accepted and presented to the audience so you see it clearly and without judgment. And on top of that, it’s hilarious. You can break through things that are taboo with humor.”
One man who has been constantly at Carrie’s side is Stanford Blatch, a gay talent agent played by Willie Garson. Full of his own romantic dramas with men and offering support as Carrie experiences hers, Stanford is perhaps most memorable for his sartorial style, which includes pointy shoes, shiny suits and bow ties. “Stanford, as a character, was very much created by (costume designer) Pat Field,” says Garson. “It’s the only character where she had carte blanche, whatever she wanted to do. So Pat’s a big personality, Stanford is a big personality.”
“Just your typical day. Breakfast with Balenciaga. Mid-morning coffee with Vivienne Westwood. Lunch with Lacroix…and de la Renta. And for dessert – Karl Lagerfeld” — Carrie Bradshaw
While the stories of Carrie and her friends’ lives kept audiences laughing and in love with Sex and the City, the characters’ unique sense of style also kept viewers tuning in week after week to have their eyes dazzled by the girls’ wardrobe, as created by costume designer Patricia Field. Throughout the show’s six year run, the downtown fashion icon dressed Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda in everything from designer couture to thrift store finds – always in something unexpected, fresh and sometimes even outrageous.
“Pat Field is indispensable,” states Sarah Jessica Parker. “We could not continue to tell the story without her, period. Her ideas, the breaking of the rules, is infectious.”
“Pat Field is an artist,” says Michael Patrick King. “She’s also incredibly fun to work with because she’s impulsive and collaborative.”
Field returned to Sex and the City with many of her same staff, including co-designer Molly Rogers. “When you work with a crew for so many years, it’s family,” says Field. “So it was great getting back together again.”
However, Field was aware that designing the wardrobe for such familiar characters, celebrated for their style, would not be an easy task. “I had to come up with some kind of action, by which I could follow some philosophy about the movie,” she explains. “And basically, the time that I was concerned about was this four year gap. I think Michael Patrick trusted me to do what was right. And for me, it just had to be intelligent, it had to have a reason. There had to be a logic behind the way they looked, because those girls are a part of everyone’s living room, and they will check it out, detail for detail. So there has to be a real truth there.”
To begin, Field envisioned Carrie as having matured in many ways. “I saw Carrie a little more sexy, a little more evolved, a little more calm with herself as a woman,” says the designer. “She was still going through her eclectic things, and she was gaining in her profession.”
“I think the fashion is really different,” adds Sarah Jessica Parker. “But Carrie is definitely a person that’s older and different, whose tastes have changed, whose palette has changed. And that’s what happens when you grow up. It’s been really exciting.”
As a producer as well as star of the film, Parker had begun her work with Field months prior to filming. “I know how much begging was in order from design houses, and I knew that we were going up be up against Fashion Week, European and American, and what it was going to take to get these clothes from Europe or whichever far flung place,” she explains. “And it’s worth it. It’s been amazing.”
“We have relationships with many designers, based on the success of the TV show,” adds Patricia Field. “The show was very good for fashion. And the designers love to see their clothes on Sarah Jessica, who is a super-model.”
“People have been waiting a while to see these ladies,” Michael Patrick King says. “And when they see these ladies, they’re going to see some color and they’re going to see some new ideas. Pat is at the top of her game.”
Some of the trends seen in the film include belts and stronger shoes, according to Field. “If I had a shoe company, Sarah Jessica would be my model,” says the designer. “Because she just flies off the air, she’s just so graceful. And she’s got beautiful legs.”
Field’s work included over eighty costumes for Sarah Jessica Parker alone, according to producer John Melfi. “Then if you count eighty looks, you’re also talking about accessories, shoes and millions of dollars worth of jewelry,” he says.
“I would estimate that there were well over three hundred changes for these four women,” Field tells it. “And there were many other characters with one or two changes. I never counted up, but I’m sure it was over a thousand costumes. It was monumental.”
“You wouldn’t believe how much time they spent in fittings,” Melfi laughs. “I find it such a creative process working with Patricia Field,” says Kim Cattrall. “Because there’s such excitement in the room. To come to a costume fitting with someone like Pat Field, where there are at least sixteen, twenty racks of things, it’s just a free-for-all of trying things on. It’s like going to a fabulous trunk show.”
“There were just tables of bags, every new bag that you haven’t seen in the store yet,” adds Kristin Davis. “And there were tables of shoes. It was just like Mecca.”
In addition to dressing the characters for the film, Field also oversaw a recreation of a Fashion Week show in Bryant Park.
Always of utmost importance to Patricia Field is creating a look that will endure. “It’s not about next year’s fashion, or next season. It’s about this movie looking good twenty years from now,” she says. “I just want to make this look gorgeous.
“I guess in certain houses… fairy tales do come true.” — Carrie Bradshaw
When Sex and the City debuted on HBO in 1998, few television shows were shot in New York, and the majority were police dramas, which highlighted the rougher side of the city. The New York that Darren Star envisioned for Sex and the City, on the other hand, was inspired more by Woody Allen, and the city the director so beautifully depicted in his films Manhattan and Annie Hall. “They are the definition of great 1970s romantic comedies that took place in New York, and I wanted to carry that tradition a little bit into the series,” says Star. “I wanted to really capture the glamour and the fun and the excitement of New York.”
“New York added an enormous amount to the series,” says Michael Patrick King. “I think New York is America’s cosmopolitan city. So if you’re going into these girls’ lives, and they’re trying to grow up, what better place than the most grown-up city in the world?”
According to King, none of the four girls are from New York. Rather, they each moved to the city in pursuit of their dreams and made the city their own. “And it’s like a dream city because sometimes you feel like it’s focused on you, and you’re having the best time of your life. And then there are other times when you completely disappear, so it’s great for storytelling.”
“New York became the fifth woman of the story,” says Sarah Jessica Parker. “She really became this critical character, integral to the story.”
With that in mind, there was no question that the feature film would be both filmed and set in New York City.
Principal photography on Sex and the City began in New York City on September 19th, 2007, with Michael Patrick King, who also wrote the screenplay, at the helm. Though King had directed numerous episodes of the series, Sex and the City marks his feature film directorial debut.
“It was really fun as a filmmaker to be able to figure out how to tell a bigger story,” says King, who actually found aspects of directing a feature to be easier than the series. “When I was doing the series I would be doing one episode and thinking about seven other episodes. So the ability to just do one story day in and day out was amazing.”
For Sarah Jessica Parker, stepping in front of the cameras to once again star as Carrie Bradshaw felt very natural. “The first day was so familiar that I didn’t even think about it,” she says.
As a producer of the film, Parker was especially appreciative to see that so many of the crew from the series had returned for the film. In fact, eight crew members who had been with the show from the pilot until the last episode were back for the movie.
“Everybody had committed themselves to us in such incredible ways,” says Parker. “And sacrificed time with their children and family. Some of the best memories I ever had professionally were at two or three in the morning, on some crazy unknown street, and still laughing and enjoying each other’s company.”
“We are like a really intense family,” adds Kristin Davis, who plays Carrie’s Park Avenue girlfriend Charlotte. “We have some new additions, and a few people couldn’t join us, but largely most of us are together for the movie.”
While the series had attracted attention when it filmed on the streets of New York, neither the cast nor the crew were quite prepared for the reception that greeted the film when cameras started to roll. Hundreds of New Yorkers, tourists, paparazzi and journalists jammed the streets every single day that Sex and the City filmed on location.
“When we came back to shoot the movie, I was intellectually prepared, I thought, for some level of interest on the streets,” says Parker. “But I don’t think I had any understanding of the degree to which people’s interest would be.”
Kim Cattrall, who plays Carrie’s outrageously glamorous friend Samantha, was similarly unprepared for the amount of interest in the production. “The first day I expected a group of fans or onlookers or some press,” she says. “But when I came to the set, and stepped out of the car in the morning, I felt like I was at a premiere.”
“It was like a three-ring circus,” adds Kristin Davis. “It was stunning. Not a day would go by that someone wouldn’t say how much they miss the show or how much they love the show. They’re very supportive fans.”
While the task of crowd control threatened to slow production, the expertise of assistant director Bettiann Fishman, a Sex and the City veteran who was given the nickname “Bullhorn Betty” on the film, kept the crowds happy, entertained and in check.
Among the locations where the film shot were on Fifth Avenue, outside Tiffany’s and Saks; Christie’s auction house, Vogue’s offices in the Condé Nast building, the Riccardo Maggiore Salon and Hotel Giraffe in midtown; Bryant Park and the neighboring main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue; the stores Vitra and Diane Von Furstenberg in the meat-packing district; Nick’s Hair Salon in Greenwich Village; on Henry Street on the Lower East Side, Park Avenue on the Upper East Side, Perry Street in Greenwich Village, and Dekalb Avenue in Brooklyn; the Mercer Hotel and Luce Plan furniture store in Soho; the Central Park reservoir, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
The restaurants where Sex and the City filmed included Buddakan and 202 Restaurant in Chelsea, The Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel and Lumi on the Upper East Side, Junior’s in Brooklyn, Raoul’s in Soho, the House near Gramercy Park, Starbucks at Astor Place, Good World Café in Chinatown and The Modern in midtown. The production also ventured outside New York City to shoot in Malibu, outside Gucci on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, on the UCLA campus and in Simi Valley, California.
When not shooting on location, the production returned to film at the same stages where the series had been created, Silvercup Studios, in Long Island City, New York. “It was surreal,” says Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda, Carrie’s straight-shooter friend, an attorney. “When you come back to the studio and there’s your old dressing room, and you go into the wardrobe room and it’s exactly as it was, and all the same people are there, you do feel like you’re stepping back in time.”
“I think the most surreal moment was stepping into Carrie’s apartment,” says Sarah Jessica Parker. “Because it had been re-established virtually identically. I think they call it forensic archeology, like when a house burns down and you want to rebuild it. I was like, `This is wonderful and bizarre.’”
“Sarah Jessica had stored a lot of stuff, God bless her,” says production designer Jeremy Conway, whose task was to recreate the apartment where many memorable moments from the series took place. But one distinctive item from the original set was missing. When the series wrapped, Carrie’s desk had been donated to the Smithsonian in Washington DC. While the designer knew exactly where the desk was, the Smithsonian was not in the habit of returning donated items.
“Sarah Jessica was able to reach out to them and convince them that maybe we could get her desk back just for a little while, while we were filming the project. And that worked out really well.” Conway explains. Items from Carrie’s apartment that could not be found were painstakingly recreated for the film, while Charlotte’s lavish Park Avenue residence was also remade.
“I was really lucky in being able to get a lot of my original crew back,” says Conway. “It was really interesting because as crew members came on who had worked on the show originally, they would remember things – like small details – we might not otherwise have remembered.
But again, Conway was always cognizant of the fact that four years had passed in the characters’ lives when he designed the sets. “Everything was just a little more grown up for all the women,” he says. “And we really focused a lot more on real materials – beautiful wallpapers and linens and the sort of details and textures that you would expect to see.”
“Jeremy’s sense of style, his clean lines – he’s incredibly elegant and chic, and it’s a hyper-reality look in terms of its sense of style,” states producer John Melfi. “Jeremy has a great way of riding the line between the chic elegance of the way we would all want to live, and what’s accessible.”
“Jeremy has done such beautiful work,” adds Sarah Jessica Parker. “I think it’s his best work ever.”
Throughout the course of the story, Conway not only recreated the homes of Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda, but also created new environments for Samantha, Mr. Big and others. “Sometimes Michael Patrick King would call it like a confection or an ice cream sundae,” says Conway about the look of the film. “He said, people are going to watch this movie and know about fashion, and what Pat Field is going to do, and he said, I want to do the same thing for anyone who’s interested in architecture and interior design.’”
Another key player who created the film’s gorgeous look is cinematographer John Thomas, who also photographed much of the Sex and the City series, including the Paris episodes in the series’ final season. “I think it’s the best work of his career,” says Parker. “It’s incredible work that he’s been doing.”
“John Thomas’ work in the movie is beautiful,” agrees Michael Patrick King. “The lighting is amazing, and he is great to work with.” In fact, Thomas’ talent was matched by his easy-going manner on the set, a work environment that was enjoyed by all.
The actors’ high regard for their director also contributed to the good feeling on set. “Michael is very supporting and very loving,” says Cynthia Nixon. “He just sends all his good vibes at us all the time.”
“Michael Patrick makes us laugh every day,” adds Kristin Davis, who is astounded by the director’s immersion in the project. “He has some strange ability to be all the characters,” she says. “Sometimes he’ll come to direct a scene in the movie, and he’ll be really choked up. It’s so adorable. He’s written it and lived it.”
“If this movie has any success, it’s because of his intense passion to do it right,” adds Sarah Jessica Parker about King. “He’s very inspiring.”
“I can say it was really fun to direct a movie like this because of the people I worked with,” says King. “They’re all geniuses. All the actresses are amazing, the actors are amazing, the designers are amazing. So for me, it’s like being a kid in a candy store.”
King hopes viewers of Sex and the City will have a similarly pleasurable experience watching the film. “I always thought that the series was a roller coaster,” he says. “And I think the movie is like a major roller coaster, with ups and downs and twists.”
King also hopes viewers of the film Sex and the City will find in the movie not only what they loved from the series, but will experience something more, as well. “When you go to the movies, you want to learn something about life, or laugh about life, or cry about life,” he says. “And hopefully, with the movie, you’ll be able to laugh and really cry.
“I want people leaving the movie theater feeling, `all right, great, that was a lot!,’” he concludes. “That was drinks, appetizer, main course, and dessert, dessert, dessert!”
Sex and the City: The Movie (2008)
Directed by: Michael Patrick King
Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, Jennifer Hudson, Lynn Cohen, Evan Handler, Mario Cantone, Jason Lewis, Joanna Gleason
Screenplay by: Michael Patrick King
Production Design by: Jeremy Conway
Cinematography by: John Thomas
Film Editing by: Michael Berenbaum
Costume Design by: Patricia Field
Set Decoration by: Lydia Marks
Art Direction by: Ed Check
Music by: Aaron Zigman
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, language.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: May 30, 2008
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