Kristin Davis broke down in tears while watching the pilot episode of Sex and the City after she spotted her late friend and co-star Willie Garson on screen.
The actor, who played Charlotte York in the hit HBO series, grew emotional while recording her new Sex and the City re-watch podcast, Are You A Charlotte?, which sees the actor give an insight into the details behind the making of the series that ran between 1998 and 2004.
While re-watching the pilot episode, Davis was taken aback when she saw Garson – who played Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) friend Stanford Blatch – in his first scene in the series.
Garson, who also had roles in the series Jon from Cincinnati and White Collar, died from pancreatic cancer in 2021, aged 57.
Recording her live reaction to seeing Garson, Davis said: “Oh my God, I forgot Willie! Oh my God, when Willie comes on the screen – I might cry, sorry, but, you know he’s so young.”
Davis’s voice grew emotional as she continued: “And he’s so beautiful and I’d really, I’d forgotten, you know? Sorry.”
The actor paused the show during Garson and Parker’s first scene together, with Davis remarking: “We were just little, little babies, you know? And he’s so funny. And their relationship is so great, and they had been friends for so long, so I love it, that it’s on camera.”
Davis’s voice wobbled as she said, “I have to stop for a little second,” before cutting to an advert break.
Earlier in the episode, Davis told listeners that Garson was present for her first screen test for the role of Charlotte, at the HBO building in Los Angeles, and that he put her at ease while she nervously waited around for five hours.
“Willie Garson was there, and I knew Willie already. I had met Willie in Vancouver probably the year before, and I loved him so much,” she recalled.
“So thank god he was there, because I had to wait for hours before I could go in and read.”
“We’re there for so long that I’d be nervous, and then I’d get un-nervous,” she said. “And then Willie would tell me a funny story, made me laugh, and I’d be un-nervous and then I get nervous again.”
Davis added that after five hours of waiting, with Garson by her side the entire time, she went in to do the test.
“I go in. I read. Then I go back out. This is how testing worked. You have to wait and then they’re gonna come back out and give you notes or tell you to go home or whatever,” she said. “It’s very stressful. And Willie is just like, ‘Oh my god. I’ve had it.’ You know, he’s so funny.”
At the time of his death in 2021, Garson had been filming for the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That, with his former co-stars Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall.
Sarah Jessica Parker, who had been friends with Garson prior to working together on the series, paid tribute to the actor in 2021 remembering “laughing late into the night as both Stanford and Carrie and Willie and SJ”.
She wrote: “A real friendship that allowed for secrets, adventure, a shared professional family, truth, concerts, road trips, meals, late night phone calls, a mutual devotion to parenthood and all the heartaches and joy that accompany, triumphs, disappointments, fear, rage and years spent on sets.”
