Kristin Davis Says HBO Tried To Pay Her Just $5K for Her Role as Charlotte York on ‘Sex and the City’
Have you ever wondered how much an actor is paid for a pilot episode? While payment varies depending on the show, its budget, and even where it is filmed, Kristin Davis is letting fans in on how much she almost made for the 1998 pilot episode of Sex and the City. A last-minute change nearly saw her character downgraded and her pay presumably slashed.
HBO offered Kristin Davis $5,000 to be a recurring character while filming the ‘Sex and the City’pilot
Kristin Davis is best known for portraying Charlotte York on Sex and the City. Currently, she’s reprising the role in And Just Like That… These days, she’s also opening up about her time on the original series. In her new podcast, Are You a Charlotte?, Davis is pulling back the curtain and offering an insider look at the making of the iconic show, including how much she almost made for it.
In her premiere episode, Davis opted to talk about the series’ infamous pilot, which she admits still isn’t her favorite. While working on the Sex and the City pilot, she said a line producer approached her with new paperwork she was expected to sign. Davis admitted she found the situation strange, as she had already been given a seven-year deal. Davis looked at the two-page document, which offered her $5,000 for a recurring role, and called her lawyer. Her legal advisor told her not to sign anything.
Davis recalled feeling uneasy about the decision, worrying that HBO would recast her part with an actor willing to take on the “recurring character” role for the $5,000 they offered. Still, she persisted, and everything turned out fine. Davis said deep down that she knew everything would work out because she felt that the series needed Charlotte’s voice.
Did ‘Sex and the City’ need Charlotte York?
Davis admits she felt nervous about refusing to sign her paperwork while filming the Sex and the City pilot. In the podcast, she confessed that the network was worried about costs. Still, she said she knew, deep down, the show needed the character in a full capacity. Was she right, though?
While many Sex and the City fans argue that they are a Carrie or a Samantha, few people admit to being a “Charlotte” deep down. While the character might not have been as sexy as Carrie Bradshaw, Brazen as Samantha Jones, or even as cynical as Miranda Hobbes, we can argue that the series did need Charlotte’s grounding voice. Charlotte was the most “mild” of the characters, but she offered a realism and real-world relatability that was a bit harder to find in the show’s other main characters. We think Davis is 100% right. The series needed Charlotte, just as it needed the other characters, to be as successful as it was.
