Kristin Davis has had enough of those ageist remarks about ‘Sex and the City’ revival
Kristin Davis has gone 2008 Charlotte York Goldenblatt cursing the day Big was born. But instead of Big — may he rest in peace — she’s giving it to ageists criticizing her and her “Sex and the City” co-stars for ... well, aging.
The star of “And Just Like That...,” who reprises her iconic role in the new HBO Max revival, took aim at the negative attention that she, Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon have been getting about their evolving looks now that they’re no longer in their 30s and play women squarely in their 50s. She’d probably whack them with her shopping bags if she could. (Or gift them a Peloton bike?)
While the revival thus far has been a far cry from HBO’s edgy original series and even its subsequent big-screen sequels, the negative commentary about the maturing stars has been much the same. But now it’s heightened by social media.
For example, when the spin-off was announced in January and the first promotional photos landed in July, they were immediately turned into memes. And it happened again when the limited series debuted last week.
A shocking scene in the premiere of HBO’s ‘Sex and the City’ reboot ‘And Just Like That ...’ caused stock prices for Peloton exercise bikes to plummet.
The 56-year-old star told the Sunday Times that she’s had it with the scrutiny and paparazzi efforts to “get bad pictures” of her and her costars while filming the series in New York. Incidentally, her Park Avenue princess alter ego is all for anti-aging fixes, including dyeing her hair to hide her gray.
“Everyone wants to comment, pro or nay or whatever, on our hair and our faces and our this and our that. The level of intensity of it was a shock,” she said of how the criticism affects her. “I feel angry, and I don’t want to feel angry all the time, so I don’t look at it. I just know it’s there.”
The “ER” and “Seinfeld” alum’s body has been a talking point for decades, and it was frequently discussed in the media during “Sex and the City’s” original run in the late ‘90s and early aughts. Davis said weekly articles about the provocative comedy often talked about her pear-shaped figure but were not complimentary.
“It would stress me out a fair amount because I couldn’t avoid it. I kind of feel like that’s how it is now too,” she said of her critics. “But I also feel — I’m going to be blunt — I feel like, ‘F— you. F— you people, like, come over here and do it better.’ You know what I mean? Like, what are you doing?
“That’s the problem with social media, right, is that you don’t know what those people are doing,” she added. “You don’t know anything about them. They’re just hurling bombs at you. It makes me angry.”
Parker has similarly called out the “misogynist chatter” about the show’s female stars, recently telling Vogue, “What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?”
Actress Nicole Ari Parker explains how HBO Max’s ‘And Just Like That...’ represents New York better and benefits from having a Black girlfriend.
Davis also pushed against the cynicism around the spin-off and argued that mature women deserve “more representation” because there’s a “total gap” in that area in the entertainment industry.
“As a single [mom] myself, life is not over at all, and it’s so ridiculous that we do not have more representation,” she said. “I feel like people have this idea that you’re done, you’re finished, your world view is done, your friends are done and that your relationships are done. No, no, nooooo.”
She also applauded the show’s efforts to course-correct its history of being too white and too straight. The revival has since added two Black actresses, an Indian character and its first non-binary Latinx character.
The complete guide to home viewing
Get Screen Gab for everything about the TV shows and streaming movies everyone’s talking about.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
