Carrie’s Sister
Brooke Shields share a merged moment
as two Bushnellian creations.
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The Observatory
Last Thursday, on a cold and blustery January afternoon, the cast and crew of Lipstick Jungle, the new NBC series premiering Feb. 7, scuttled about the Ukrainian Institute of America on 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Bright lights illuminated the high ceilings, ornate moldings and chandeliers within the 1898 mansion, which was standing in as a billionaire bachelor’s New York City apartment. Banks of additional lights outside the building created artificial sunlight streaming through the windows. The grand staircase was covered in plastic wrap. At the top, Brooke Shields—tall, sleek and TV makeup-ready—waited in a puffy winter coat (heat, apparently, not high on the list of priorities) to be called in front of the cameras, and tried to placate her daughter, the 4-and-a-half-year-old Rowan, who wondered, insistently, how much longer. The blond little girl attempted to stare down her famous mother. The two heads came together for some whispered negotiations, before Ms. Shields pulled Rowan cozily onto her lap. “Sorry,” she said with the universal what-can-you-do mommy smile. “We had a little bit of a change of schedule today.”
There was something awfully appropriate about witnessing this scene, as Lipstick Jungle, based on the best-selling novel by Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, tackles the subject of three high-powered Manhattan women juggling their big-time jobs, their relationships, friendships and—in Ms. Shields’ character’s case—kids.
With Lipstick Jungle, the powers-that-be at NBC are hoping to capture the millions of viewers whose longing for Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte has not been slaked by the reruns, DVD’s and sanitized TBS versions they have had to make do with since the hit HBO show went off the air in 2004. “It’s a jungle out there. Dress accordingly” is the show’s tag line; the trailers and adverts not-so-subtly suggest the show’s Sex and The City lineage, with glamour shots of high heels striding on sidewalks and the three female leads showing plenty of leg and cleavage. And the Jan. 31 premiere party would thrill Carrie Bradshaw: It’s being held in the shoe department of Saks Fifth Avenue.
But the creators of the show stress its move into new territory.
“In Sex and The City, the shocking thing was women talking about sex,” said Candace Bushnell, who created Sex and The City in the pages of The New York Observer in the 1990’s and is one of the show’s executive producers. “But today, women still have a hard time talking about ambition.” The blond and blue-eyed Ms. Bushnell, who is a dedicated presence on set, was perfectly coiffed and surprisingly delicate in dark jeans (and, yes, fashionably pointy high heels). “I mean, we have a woman running for president,” she said. “Sex isn’t forbidden—there are women having Tupperware parties with sex toys—but saying you want to be CEO or president of the United States? You’re not supposed to say that unless you’re 12 and then no one takes you seriously.”
“I like that it’s not only about the happily ever after,” said Brooke Shields. “What I love about these women is that the goal is not finding the man and having that be the only type of happiness. We spend so much of our younger years thinking that’s what you have to get: you have to get the relationship, you have to get the family. … Now when you’re actually in it, when you get what you wished for, how do you spend your days in it?”
The three main characters of Lipstick Jungle are Wendy Healy (Ms. Shields), a married movie mogul; Nico Reilly(Kim Raver), a Vanity Fair-like editor in chief, also married; and Victory Ford (Lindsay Price) a fashion designer who dates a billionaire named Joe Bennett, played by 80’s heartthrob Andrew McCarthy. (All three women are described in Ms. Bushnell’s book as being in their early 40’s; NBC describes them as “30- and 40-somethings.”)
The pilot opens with the information that all three women have made it onto a list of “New York City’s 50 Most Powerful Women,” as they convene for Victory Ford’s fashion show—which is slammed in the press the following day. The trio assemble to console Victory with alternating advice. (“You can use the house in Montauk,” says Wendy. “The freezer in the garage is stocked with Dove bars and weed.” Nico counsels her not to show defeat: “I find it offensive that women always feel that we have to apologize for our success. There is no luck, there’s just talent and hard work, and the ability to bounce back when you’re knocked down.” Quips Wendy, “And I always thought she just screwed her way to the top.”)
Their individual story lines are set into place neatly: Wendy, who spends the pilot trying to nail down Leonardo DiCaprio to a film project, is struggling with her child’s private school application and the resentment of her less successful husband. Nico, who senses that a male co-worker is trying to usurp her position with the boss (played by hey-look-who-it-is Julian Sands), feels ignored by her husband and contemplates an affair with a young hottie played by Robert Buckley (who had the female contingent of the crew in a full-on swoon). And Victory sets about getting her fashion line back on track while beginning to date big-bucks Joe Bennett. Fantasy elements firmly in place (Joe sends his private jet to whisk Victory home!), the show’s heart emerges in scenes of the three women together being warm, supportive and irreverent.
“When I signed on, I moved it as close to thirtysomething as I could,” said Timothy Busfield, the TV acting veteran from that iconic drama, as well as The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Along with Ms. Bushnell and Oliver Goldstick, he is an executive producer of Lipstick Jungle and is also directing most of the initial episodes.
Mr. Busfield, hair a paler shade of ginger then in his thirtysomething days, had ER’s Anthony Edwards as a guest on set that day (the two have been friends since 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds), and looked tired but happy as the crew moved to a new location, the French Embassy, just down the block.
“I really wanted this show to be about the little problems,” he said. “I do not like necessarily, even in our show, when we get too hijinks-orientated. Too high profile. I’d love the show to be, at its core, about the difficulty of the working mom, a leader in the workplace, who still is a mom and wife who provides for her husband and kids. My dream moment is to see Brooke come home after an enormously long day and have to load the dishwasher. Those little problems—not the business going under, or flying to Scotland to get J.K. Rowling … That stuff? Great, we have it. But the matters of self-doubt and overcoming self-doubt, that is what the show is about.”
Mr. Busfield, who was raised by a single mom, has encouraged the cast to bring their kids to the set (Ms. Raver has a 5-year-old son and 3-month-old baby) in the name of creating a happy work environment. “If Kim breaks to nurse, no one is allowed to make her feel bad or rush,” said Mr. Busfield. “This is a show when women can bring their kids. I don’t expect you to leave them at home, I’ll wait for you to finish pumping if you need to.”
He also expects the show to offer sympathetic and complex male characters. “I felt the men were a little two-dimensional on Sex and The City,” said Mr. Busfield, adding, “I think men’s reaction to Sex and The City is like women’s reaction to The Three Stooges.
“I want the male audience,” he continued. “I want them to think, What can I do better?” He laughed. “They laugh, but the actresses know I want to shoot them like John Wayne. They’re all John Wayne to me. Shoot the costumes, get the moments, let me see the spurs.”
Before Lipstick Jungle went into production, it was already creating some drama. Last October, The New York Times reported on a fallout between Ms. Bushnell and her close friend, Sex and The City executive producer Darren Star. The gist: Mr. Star had bid for rights to develop the novel Lipstick Jungle for television in 2005; NBC reportedly doubled his bid, and won. Later, Ms. Bushnell learned that Mr. Star had proceeded to develop a show with a strikingly similar theme to that of her book, with Working Girl screenwriter Kevin Wade, called Cashmere Mafia.
Cashmere Mafia premiered on Jan. 6 on ABC to tepid reviews. “Mostly the series functions as an entertaining if pale sequel to its HBO prototype,” said The New York Times. “The show is too snide, condescending, and unpleasant to be salvageable,” said USA Today. The New York Post’s Linda Stasi, however, loved it—three stars! The ratings—the show has averaged 5.73 million viewers for the first three broadcasts—have been decent but unspectacular, particularly considering the show is debuting in an arid, WGA-strike-stripped television landscape. (Mr. Busfield said he had watched Cashmere Mafia. “I wasn’t devastated by it,” he said. “I was happy that they’re very different than us.”)
Back on the Lipstick Jungle set, Ms. Price huddled deeper into her coat as her character Victory’s wardrobe was packed up and returned. “I wanted to do this show so badly,” she said. “It was like having a crush on someone so much, you almost write it off.”
Her budding friendship with Ms. Shields and Ms. Raver has paralleled that of their characters. “Within our friendship we have an older, middle, and younger sister tone in real life that plays very much,” she said. “It’s natural. The work comes easily.”
She looked out a window, where the sun was setting and dousing Central Park in a late winter glow. “This role is so glamorous and fun and romantic—look where we’re sitting. Look at Fifth Avenue!”
What will Sex and The City fans see when they tune in next week?
The biggest difference for audiences, initially, will be Lipstick Jungle’s hourlong format. And while the clothes may still be stunning, the subtext is more grown-up. Sex and The City not only celebrated the state of singlehood in New York, it also heavily influenced that state; it created a generation of 20-something women, who are currently living in this city, who knew about Manolo Blahniks, Cosmopolitans and toxic bachelors before ever setting foot on the island and who have set about replicating it from their thin-walled Murray Hill apartments. Take a look around some Saturday night, and you’ll see them, in groups of four or five, dressed carefully, and saying “fabulous” and “fuck” a lot.
Lipstick Jungle does not seem out to swill Cosmos or get weak-kneed over boy toys. No naked Samantha careening about town or group giggles over Rabbit vibrators. And with a longer running time, it will have an opportunity to explore deeper, murkier ground. (Though you can bet the private jet will always be gassed-up on the tarmac.)
The sisterly comradeship that magnetized viewers to Sex and The City has survived intact in Lipstick Jungle. (Though when the ladies convene, they are just as likely to discuss their jobs or private schools as the men in their life. ) And the main sexual relationships onscreen are--gulp-- marriages: The first two episodes go places that Sex and The City didn’t spend much time in, like how scary and queasy a relationship can be when there are children involved and two people are committed to making it work. Or how lonely it can feel inside a marriage.
Ms. Bushnell was asked how New York City has changed since she wrote the first Sex and The City column in 1994. “I think the tenor of the city hasn’t changed,” she said. “It’s still a place to come and make it. The patterns are still there: They come to New York, they’re working up, they look up at the so-called establishment and the young want to tear it down and take its place. As time goes on they become hot and they become the establishment—and then everybody has kids and moves to Brooklyn.” She laughed. “It’s the city that people come to make it, a certain kind of maverick person. It was true in Edith Wharton’s day and it was true in 1994 and it’s certainly true today.”
Copyright © 2008 The New York Observer. All rights reserved.
