Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda’s Career Paths Were Much Different in the Columns That Inspired ‘Sex and the City’
Sex and the City was famously based on a series of columns and a book by author Candace Bushnell. In the original columns, Bushnell told stories about people she knew but always returned to a core group of friends in her writing. While it is hard to imagine the characters as different from what was depicted by HBO, that’s the case. The characters of Miranda Hobbes, Charlotte York, and Samantha Jones were much different than the characters described in the Sex and the City source material. While Carrie Bradshaw remained true to her column self, her pals had much different career paths in the original book. While the series kept some personality traits intact, their storylines and career paths were changed to craft a more interesting series.
Miranda Hobbes had a cocaine addiction in the book that inspired ‘Sex and the City’
In the original series, Carrie’s best friend, Miranda Hobbes, is a high-powered lawyer with a type-A personality but plenty of insecurities. While she’s smart, successful, and logical, she’s also inherently cynical and afraid of finding romantic happiness. The characterization of Miranda that Sex and the City fans grew to love on HBO differed from the Miranda that appeared in the original column.
According to Audible, Miranda was written as a cable executive who liked to party. The book version of Miranda was also a type-A personality. She spent many hours at work, but she also spent time using drugs. The book version of Miranda had a cocaine habit.
Samantha Jones was a high-powered producer in the original columns
Samantha Jones of the original series kept a lot of attributes from the character written about in Candace Bushnell’s columns. Still, her career path was also changed to make her storyline a bit more interesting. In the original series, Samantha Jones was a self-made woman and a publicist. She was uninhibited and enjoyed sex unapologetically.
Samantha was high-powered and self-assured in the original columns, just like in the series. She was similarly interested in sex and shied away from a traditional path to romance. The Samantha written about in the source material, was a film producer with plenty of money to back her up.
Charlotte York’s storyline was changed and expanded to make her the group’s fourth
Sex and the City fans probably couldn’t imagine the show without the character of Charlotte York as one of the main four. That’s how it almost happened, though. Charlotte was not a core member of Carrie’s group in the source material. Instead, she was an acquaintance who flitted in and out of Carrie’s life. She was not an art dealer from a wealthy family from New England in the books. Instead, she was an English woman.
According to Sex and the City and Us, Charlotte wasn’t going to be included as a main character in the series, either. Kristin Davis, the actor who played Charlotte, initially thought she would have a recurring role. The chemistry of the four characters worked too well to consider keeping Charlotte out of the girl group, though.
