Blair Underwood Says He Initially Turned Down 'Sex and the City' Over Samantha's Fascination With 'Dating a Black Man'
Underwood's character in the former HBO show would ultimately be written as Dr. Robert Leeds, a love interest to Miranda.
In the late 1990s and 2000s, almost no series was exempt from awkward storylines about interracial dating. In terms of former HBO drama-sitcom Sex and the City, actor Blair Underwood, who stars in new horror, Longlegs, required his character to be rewritten after being initially scripted as a fetishsized love interest of Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall).
In an interview with the AV Club, Underwood spoke about why his Sex and the City casting was changed to become Dr. Robert Leeds, who dated Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) in the show's sixth and final season.
"I actually did say ‘no’ the first time," Underwood told AV Club about his original character. "The first time they had offered the role, to be honest with you, it was about how Samantha was fascinated by dating a Black man and wanted to know if, uh, all of the rumors were true about our anatomy. And I said, 'Listen, I’m honored, thank you, but I just don’t want to play a character based on race, on curiosity about a Black man.'"
One year following Underwood's rejection, the show's team followed up with him about a different storyline, to which the actor asked, "Well, is it gonna be about race?"
"They said, 'No, no, no, we’re not even gonna mention race,'" Underwood continued. "And I think it really did only come up maybe once. I did five episodes, and I think Samantha mentioned it once, saying something about ‘a Black doctor’ that Miranda was dating. And that’s really been a consistent thing in my career: not wanting to be boxed as 'the Black guy.' I’ve had that conversation with many producers along the way, and they were so great. They said, 'No, he’s just a doctor who Miranda meets in the elevator, and they have a nice little fling.' And it was amazing."
Underwood putting his foot down on a non-fetishized portrayal worked in the actor's favor, which he also spoke about on Netflix's Strong Black Lead in 2020.
"I mean honestly I said no first two years prior," Underwood said around the 4:30-mark of the video below, explaining Jones' desire to date a Black man for sexual reasons.
"It was all about the curiosity of what's a Black man like, are the rumors true and all that. And I said, 'Thank you, but no thank you. I'm not interested in being the Black curiorsity, but thank you.'"
Acknowledging that he was tokenized in his earlier roles, Underwood added that he was more interested in characters that captured "humanity" and "encompasses everything."
"Not just your race, not just your gender, not just your profession, not just your nationality, but everything that you are," he said.
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