If someone already wrote a negative review with the dialogue in it, you might as well use it. Being good at accepting constructive criticism doesn’t make you a Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, or Charlotte. According to Kristin Davis, it makes you more like Darren Star and Michael Patrick King—the creator and main writer-director of Sex and the City.
In the latest episode of Davis’ must-hear podcast Are You a Charlotte?, she talks with Molly Price, who played Susan Sharon in two episodes of Sex and the City and also appeared in the newer series And Just Like That.
They discussed Price’s first appearance in the episode “The Awful Truth,” which is the second episode of Season 2. Davis quoted a line that Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) wrote, saying it actually revealed how the show’s creators were dealing with their critics.
‘Was Miranda right? Have we put such a premium on being open and honest with one another that we’ve misplaced the boundaries of propriety? Are there still certain things in a relationship one should never say?’ Michael Patrick — and Darren wrote this one — and both of them, I think, have included criticism of the first season into the writing. So, the first episode [of the second season] is when Miranda gets up and says, like, ‘All we do is talk about men and sex. I’m leaving until we can talk about something different,’ which was a big criticism of the show in the beginning. Like, ‘Why are all these women sitting around talking about men all the time?’ ‘Was Miranda right? Have we put such a premium on being open and honest with one another that we’ve misplaced the boundaries of propriety? Are there still certain things in a relationship one should never say?’ Michael Patrick — and Darren wrote this one — and both of them, I think, have included criticism of the first season into the writing. So, the first episode [of the second season] is when Miranda gets up and says, like, ‘All we do is talk about men and sex. I’m leaving until we can talk about something different,’ which was a big criticism of the show in the beginning. Like, ‘Why are all these women sitting around talking about men all the time?’
“Carrie,” Davis remembered, “is writing
Here’s where Price commented.
Well, we’re not doing a documentary. You know, we’re doing a comedy.
Then Davis responded:
Definitely, definitely. But you know how critics are, right? They don’t care. They’re going to find something. They’re all failed actors. Oh, did I say that?” to some snickers and an “I love it” from Davis, before she got back to the episode, saying, “I had forgotten these moments where I think that they’re putting in the things people [threw] stones at us about. Like, we’re just going to use it — which is smart.
Price then slipped in a
What seems to be the first Sex and the City review in The New York Times back in 1998—paired with a review of the similar but West Coast-based show Armistead Maupin’s More Tales of the City—was written by Caryn James, a critic, author, professor, and PhD in English Literature from Brown University (and definitely not a failed actress).
She talked about some of the sharp dialogue in the pilot episode, saying it was “not kind but… true.”
Source: EW