Sarah Jessica Parker Nearly Quit 'Sex and the City' After Filming the First Episode

We all know Sex and the City is an all-time iconic show—a staple of popular culture that continues to be relevant more than two decades after its debut. The characters within the show are equally as iconic, most notably Carrie Bradshaw and her chaotic life, whose trajectory would have been completely different if Sarah Jessica Parker had followed through with her desire to quit after the first episode.  Yep, you read that correctly, SJP was, indeed, on the verge of quitting the series, something she just recently revealed on co-star Kristin Davis’ podcast Are You a Charlotte? According to Bradshaw, she "panicked" upon realizing the show was going to get picked up for a full season.

"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, recalling how she had previously done television shows like Equal Justice earlier on in her career, and didn’t particularly care for it. "I think that it was the idea of doing the same thing over and over and over again—the idea of a television series meant that I couldn't do all those things," she continued.

The source of her panic, she says, was not realizing that television actors can take on additional work while on their hiatuses. "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 explained to Davis, adding that two people helped her with making the decision to do Sex and the City. One of those individuals was then-HBO chairman Chris Albrecht, who told her that if she committed for a year and still felt the same way, then she could leave.