In one of his final interviews,Willie Garsonrecalled how he nearly missed out on his iconicSex and the Cityrole.
Garson, who played Stanford Blatch, the best friend ofSarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO series,diedTuesday at age 57 frompancreatic cancer. Prior to his death, he had alsoalready filmed scenesfor the show’s upcoming revival,And Just Like That….
In an interview with Robin Bronk on theAt Home with the Creative Coalitionpodcast recorded several months before he died, Garson said that he initially passed onSATCwhen he was offered a role on the pilot episode in the 1990s.
“Sex and the Citywas not a big deal because it was HBO,” he said. “I actually got two pilots on the same day, and I took the other pilot, which was for Fox. AndSex and the Citylet me guest on the pilot ofSex and the City.”
Willie Garson on Sex and the City.Craig Blankenhorn/Hbo
The Fox show was picked up but then canceled after 13 episodes, according to Garson. Luckily, however,Sex and the Cityhadn’t begun shooting the first season yet. Garson said at the time, Parker, whom he had become friends with as a young actor in the 1980s, was working on Broadway.
“It was a full year before episodes started shooting,” he said. “So we called upSex and the Cityand said, ‘Hey, listen, uh, we made a mistake and we’d like to come back.'”
“And they said, ‘Well, we kind of like it this way, as a recurring character instead of a regular character,'” he continued. “So I stayed a recurring character for, you know, six-and-a-half seasons — a very popular recurring character.”
The actor said a recurring role was actually ideal, because he could do other projects while working on the beloved series.
“Now, the bonus of that was that when the show exploded — which was great — I wasn’t tied to the show, so I worked a lot outside of the show,” Garson said, calling the period his “really good years.”
John Sciulli/Getty
“I’ve been very fortunate, because the shows that I’ve been on have been impactful and have reached a lot of people,” he said. “And that has always interested me. I don’t believe in doing something just for me, I believe in doing something with the partnership with the audience.”
source: people.com
