Kristin Davis "didn't want to" go topless in a 'Sex and the City' scene. The 60-year-old actress – who played Charlotte York in the popular HBO romantic comedy series – found it "mortifying" shooting the scene in the opening episode of season five and claimed that she was pressured into doing so by showrunner Michael Patrick King.
Kristin said on her 'Are You a Charlotte?' podcast: "Michael Patrick (King) forced me to do it.
"He kept telling me, 'It'll be fine. It'll be great'. "And it is. But we were in a restaurant. There were people everywhere."
The star admitted feeling "a lot of stress about" disrobing on camera and even laughed at Michael's insistence for her to remove her top, saying: "It's OK. He knows."
Kristin also reflected on the challenge of filming her first totally nude scene in 'Sex and the City', which took place in a season six storyline where her character converts to Judaism and steps into a mikveh bath.
She recalled during a conversation with the show's writer Jenny Bicks: "It was a very, very integral part of the storyline. Because it wasn't sexual – it's much easier to have some nudity in a non-sexual way in a spiritual way."
However, Davis was still uncomfortable as crew members surrounded her during the shoot.
She said: "The director and the (director of photography) and the 'video village' set up – because the (assistant director) let it happen – where (she) had to walk, and they were smoking cigars.
"I was like, 'Uh, I'm trying to do something here without feeling self-conscious. Could you possibly move all those guys?' It's crazy back then what went on."
"Even in a situation where you theoretically did have so much power, all that stuff was still able to happen, and you had to be the bad guy and say, 'They can't smoke cigars literally in my eye line. '"
Despite the issues during the production, Kristin described the mikveh scene as "gorgeous, romantic perfection" and stressed that she was "so happy" she filmed it.
She quipped: "I was so stressed... (but) I should have just been running through town with my shirt off."