Kristin Davis Opens Up About Intercourse and the Metropolis in New Podcast (Unique)

Kristin Davis wished to speak. Final month, she invited PEOPLE to sit down down together with her for lunch at Soho Home in West Hollywood. Tucked into a comfy chair in a nook, she seems out over Los Angeles. Simply there, within the distance, she spots a well-known emblem: “Oh, look, HBO!” The Intercourse and the Metropolis and …And Simply Like That star takes a sip of her decaf latte and makes a confession: “I’m a bit of nervous!”

Davis has been on tv for 3 many years now, since getting her huge break on Melrose Place in 1995. Alongside the way in which, she’s by no means wished to speak a lot about her private life or costars, however, then once more, she hadn’t but had her personal podcast.

Davis, who turns 60 later this month, is thought for her supporting roles in decade-defining TV reveals. However now she’s entrance and middle, main the iHeartRadio podcast Are You a Charlotte?, the place she revisits SATC episode by episode. And this time it’s Davis who’s doing the narrating.

Her newest function as a storyteller has put Davis in a nostalgic temper. Raised in South Carolina, Davis studied appearing at Rutgers College and after commencement — and getting sober — shortly nabbed small components on ER and daytime soaps earlier than her huge break on the nighttime one, Melrose Place. Searching over the town, the mother of two pauses and takes a deep breath: “Effectively, right here’s a narrative I’ve by no means instructed.”

It was nearly precisely 30 years in the past that Davis was up for the function of Brooke Armstrong on Aaron Spelling’s nighttime cleaning soap, starring Heather Locklear, a couple of group of twentysomething Angelenos all dwelling round a pool.

“I had simply opened up a yoga studio; that was my backup plan,” she remembers. Her audition got here all the way down to her and two different actors, one among whom now has two Oscars. “Hilary Swank walked out and was like, ‘Oh, I completely blew it.’ ” Davis walked in. “Mr. Spelling was there. He had this enormous workplace, this curvy lengthy sofa and fish tanks.” She bought the half and was on the present in 1995 and 1996, “however they didn’t know what to do with me,” she says. “I’d get my script, and I’d simply be like, ‘Oh, Jesus, what am I gonna do that week?’ My character was very conniving!”  

She remembers Locklear being “so extremely good” and that she “actually set an instance for the way somebody dealt with fame, easy methods to lead a present.” However, Davis remembers, “there was a common vibe on the set, although, that was tough, concerning the thinness scenario. Each single particular person was beautiful and tremendous skinny.” She pauses. “So I used to be like, ‘That is what I’ve to do.’ ” She employed a working coach, would do back-to-back 90-minute spin courses. “I’m certain I wasn’t consuming. I’d be so lightheaded that I fainted in a parking zone one time. Generally I couldn’t keep in mind my title.”

She was on the most well liked present in 1995 and Los Angeles was a celebration city, she remembers. However Davis had already gotten sober. “Oh yeah, I used to be a weirdo,” she says. “There have been like plates of cocaine, and I used to be like ‘What the f—? Get me out of right here.’ It undoubtedly set me aside.”  Davis, who has been sober ever since, says she drank for a similar causes she liked appearing.

“I began ingesting early,” she remembers. “It was freedom. Till it wasn’t. Sufficient unhealthy issues had occurred,” she says. “If I hadn’t liked appearing, I don’t assume I’d’ve stopped, as a result of I wouldn’t have had a cause to cease. However for me, type-A me who wished to be so good at the whole lot to do with my job, that was once I first had the sort of light-bulb second of, ‘Oh, appearing, ingesting. They’re not going to go nice collectively.’”

When Intercourse and the Metropolis premiered in 1998, Davis was solid as hopeful romantic Charlotte York, a task that might outline her profession. The present’s creator and producer, Darren Star, whom Davis knew from Melrose, initially despatched her the function of Carrie. “I used to be like, ‘No means! I can not play that lady. I’ve to play this different lady.’ ” It labored out.

She, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall got here collectively for the primary time on the desk learn simply earlier than they started filming. “There was a bizarre alchemy that occurs with us and our characters but in addition with us and one another,” she says. “Chemistry is one thing you possibly can’t plan on. We had been simply so excited that the 4 of us [women] had been the solid — that was remarkable, actually — and that we had been gonna be in Manhattan, filming on the streets.”

Years after the collection resulted in 2004, a fracture was revealed between Cattrall and her castmates. Requested concerning the standing of their relationship, Davis says, “I haven’t seen her in a really very long time. In my thoughts, we labored collectively, we did this wonderful factor collectively. I’m doing this podcast to speak about what’s completely different now, what we would have gotten incorrect. I need to rejoice her a part of the present. As a result of it’s an enormous, enormous half. It must be celebrated, revered and held up. That’s my purpose, to not fire up drama. Additionally, since this present ended and the films ended, she stated she wished we wouldn’t speak about her anymore. I need to honor that.”

When Davis started recording the primary episode of her podcast, one thing occurred. In speaking about ghosting alongside Sarah Wynter, who guest-starred within the pilot episode of Intercourse and the Metropolis, Davis stepped into Carrie Bradshaw’s sneakers and instructed her personal dating-nightmare story a couple of man who ghosted her within the ’90s — and nonetheless owes her $5,000.

“It was scary,” she says of sharing her expertise. “I’m normally very cautious and don’t speak about my personal life, however right here I’m on this scenario the place I’ve began a podcast concerning the themes of our present.” Nixon, for one, is loving it. “It’s fantastic to see her in command of this new world that she’s creating,” she says. “It’s a part of her rising into herself and all her powers.”

For extra on Kristin Davis, choose up the newest situation of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe right here.