She takes both my hands and looks me in the eye. “You’re doing it.” “Really? I’m not sure if I want to do a TV series again, and my new manager says—
She takes both my hands and looks me in the eye. “You’re doing it.” “Really? I’m not sure if I want to do a TV series again, and my new manager says—”
“You’re doing it, Kyle,” she says. “You have to.”
Desiree’s excitement puts my antennae up. The meeting’s at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue. Michael is there, fast-talking and high-energy, as is one of the show’s head writers, Jenny Bicks. In these kinds of meetings, I always act enthusiastic even if I’m not. But Michael and Jenny are exceptionally good at their pitch: They have me on the hook right away.
“So, here’s what we’re thinking for your character,” Michael says in his boyish, high-pitched way, lots of expressive hand gestures. “We’re going to pair you up with Charlotte.” Desiree has briefed me, so I know this is the character played by Kristin Davis. “He’s like a handsome, debonair doctor. WASPy.”
“Upper East Side with money,” Jenny says.
“But old money, you know, the eligible bachelor type. A catch,” Michael emphasizes.
That voice starts up in my head again, the one I think of as “Other Kyle,” my all-ego flipside, always predicting my impending success.
Now we’re talking. We’re back, baby!
“Sounds great,” I say.
This is exactly what we need. A JFK Jr. type throwing the football in Central Park on the weekends.
“But,” Jenny says, “he’s got a little problem.”
“Two, actually,” Michael adds.
Of course, he can’t be perfect. I’m sure it’s something charming. Maybe he has a—
“He’s impotent,” Michael says.
What’s that?
“What’s that?” I ask.
“He can’t get it up,” Michael says. “It’s a problem. Also, he has a let’s say unconventional attachment to his mother.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, retaining the smile. “How do you mean?”
“Oh, you know,” Michael says, “like he takes a bath with her sitting on the edge of the tub.” He talks like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “That kind of stuff.”
“Oh, you mean when he was a child,” I say. Jenny is shaking her head.
“No, as an adult,” Michael says. “Charlotte walks in on them.”
I feel myself shrinking in my chair. The box again. The off-kilter energy of my previous work has trapped me in these kinds of parts. I continue to smile, feigning interest as I slowly hollow out inside.
After the meeting, Other Kyle accosts me out on Park Avenue.
We’re not doing it.
I don’t know. Could be fun.
Impotent? Bathing with his mother? What’s that going to do to our image?
Oh, c’mon. She’s not in the tub. And that’s vanity. It doesn’t matter. It’s a good part on a popular—
Why can’t we play the Mr. Big guy? Now, that’s a role we can really sink—
He’s already cast.
Jesus, Kyle. You’re the only actor who’d join a show about sex and not have any.
I’m a little resistant, but Desiree, who knows what she’s doing, saves me. She has a sense of the zeitgeist and really pointed instincts, recognizing Sex and the City as a sharp move. Plus, it shoots in New York—infrequent for a TV series at the time—which is great for us. I’m in love, and I want to make it work, so I take the role. Everyone is joyful. Almost everyone.
