Sex and the City famed actress Sarah Jessica Parker was one of the only cast members of the franchise who never performed a nude scene and now we know why. The 58-year-old actress revealed the reason why never did a nude scene onscreen in a recent interview.
Sarah Jessica Parker Explains No Nudity Clause
Sarah Jessica Parker is famously known for playing Carrie Bradshaw in the hit HBO series Sex and the City. In a recent interview with The Howard Stern Show, Sarah Jessica Parker talked about her role in SATC and why she didn’t want to appear nude on-screen. When Howard asked Sarah if she was the first choice for playing Carrie Bradshaw in the show, the actress responded,
“I got a script from my agent, he said Darren Star is thinking about you for this [Sex and the City], would you meet him? He said I wrote this with you in mind and I shared with him the only concern of mine. I think the script was really interesting, really exciting, different, and fresh. And I’d never seen anything like that.”
She went on to explain the only concern she had with the role.
“The only thing I said to [Darren Star] that I was concerned about was that I just didn’t feel comfortable doing nudity, and I suspected that if it wasn’t in the pilot, it would be a part of a series. He said, ‘Don’t do it then … we’ll have other actors, if they feel comfortable doing it they’ll do it, but you do not have to.’”
When Howard further enquired if she was uncomfortable with nudity due to body image issues or because she was afraid she would be categorized as an actress in the industry. The And Just Like That star responded,
“I think I was just shy, I think I just never felt comfortable exposing myself that way, and I never had any judgment about anybody else doing it. It wasn’t like a morality thing, if somebody else felt comfortable doing it, I was admiring of them. But, I just never felt comfortable being nude, I didn’t think it would change a perception of me, or create opportunities that I might not be interested in. I was shy.”
Sarah Jessica Parker Talks About HBO
In 2018, Sarah spoke to People about the pressure she was facing from people to “take her clothes off.” She said,
“I don’t know if I had confidence or if I was being counseled by people. There was so much pressure for me to take my clothes off.”
Sarah Jessica Parker said she was lucky to have an agent like Kevin Huvane who stepped in and told her not to do anything she was uncomfortable with. The 58-year-old actress stated-
“My agent [CAA’s Kevin Huvane] sent a car and a plane ticket [to the film set] and he said, ‘If anybody makes you do anything that you’re not comfortable doing, you don’t.’ Given what’s happening now and the stories told from that particular period, I know how lucky I am that there was someone — in this case, a man — who stepped in.”
The actress also stated that she “never once” faced “any pressure” to reconsider her no-nudity clause. She also revealed that even though HBO allows the actors to say anything onscreen which includes foul words like “fuck” or “bitch”, she wasn’t comfortable saying them. While speaking to Howard Stern, Sarah Jessica Parker added,
“It meant we had to be disciplined, and we shouldn’t just use language because we could. Carrie Bradshaw is a writer. She’s really, really thoughtful about what she says, how she says it, when she says it, who she’s saying it to … We can be smart about it.”
