Candace Bushnell says Sex And The City ‘resonates’ with young people today
By Casey Cooper-Fiske, PA Entertainment Reporter
Sex And The City creator Candace Bushnell has said the show still “resonates” with young people today because despite changes in technology they still face “the same struggles” when dating.
The 65-year-old told the PA news agency the TV series has become “bigger than ever” since it became available to stream on Netflix, which she said had made it “more accessible”.
The Connecticut-born author was speaking ahead of a UK tour next year of her show True Tales Of Sex, Success And Sex And The City, which sees Bushnell speak about the stories that inspired the series.
She told PA: “It continues to resonate with younger audiences, and now it’s on Netflix, and I mean, honestly, I think it’s bigger than ever, because Netflix has such a huge reach.
“It’s global, it always was a global phenomenon, in the sense that when people watched it on the discs, people would come up to me from all over the world who were watching it.
“Now it’s just much more accessible to watch on Netflix because, of course, Netflix is everywhere, and people still relate.
“Young people still relate. I have so many young people who come up to me and just say they love the show, and they’re in a lot of the same situations.
“Of course, technology has changed dating, but there’s still the same struggles and disappointments, and the joys, frankly, but dating apps do seem to make things a little bit trickier.”
The show’s main character Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) was inspired by Bushnell’s experiences as a journalist in New York City, but she said former Vogue and GQ publisher Ron Galotti – the real-life version of John James “Mr Big” Preston, Carrie’s on-off boyfriend and later husband – is “actually a pretty nice guy” unlike the “horrible” character he inspired.
She said: “It’s a lot of the guys that Carrie dated (that have real-life stories behind them) so, you know, was there a real Mr Big?
“Yes, there was, so I tell the story of the real Mr Big and then there’s snippets of some of the other male characters who Carrie dated, and it’s also about the female friendships. And the female friendships throughout my life that impacted the stories on Sex And The City.
“He’s actually a pretty nice guy (Galotti). He was very powerful because he was the publisher of Vogue, I mean, it’s not a secret, you can Google it, and you know now he lives in Vermont.
“I think he’s been married for about 25 years, and he rides horses and drives a tractor.
“In real life, he’s somebody who lived a big, glamorous Vogue life of fashion designers and models and all of that, the very, very glamorous life.
“And then he said, ‘I’m going to Vermont’, which I have to say I love, always a very real, down-to-earth person.
“He could also be very glamorous and wear the Italian suits.”
Bushnell will perform her show at five UK dates next year: The Alexandra in Birmingham on March 9, York Grand Opera House on March 11, Glasgow’s King’s Theatre on March 13, Manchester Opera House on March 15, and London Palladium on March 17. Tickets go on sale at tegeurope.com at 10am on Friday.
Sex And The City follows Carrie and her three friends Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), and their dating lives, friendships and femininity.
It initially ran for six series between 1998 and 2004, before two films, Sex And The City (2008) and Sex And The City 2 (2010).
The films were followed by two series of And Just Like That…, which is set 11 years after the events of the 2010 film, with a third planned for release next year.