Talking With Lindsey Gort, The Carrie Diaries’ Young Samantha Jones

When we saw the first photos of Lindsey Gort strutting down a Manhattan street as Samantha Jones, we gasped. Straight-up gasped. In season one of The Carrie Diaries—which returns tonight—AnnaSophia Robb turned out a Bradshaw worthy of, and warmly linked to, Sarah Jessica Parker’s original. But this is a whole ‘nother level: Gort looks like Samantha Jones’ mini-me, and tonight we’ll get to see the eerie comparisons set in motion. Ahead of the premiere, the Arizona native and I talked about eyebrows, outfits, and making Samantha work for a younger crowd.

MA: How did you first get connected with the chance to audition for Samantha?

LG: When the part came up, my manager called the producers and was like, “Remember when you saw my client and said she looked like a young Kim Cattrall?” I went in, I got a callback and met AnnaSophia, but a few days later I heard it was a no, they were waiting on a bigger name. Then they called me in again, then they said no again. I kept going in—the whole process took more than a month.

MA: After all that, it must have felt amazing to finally get the good news.

LG: And I couldn’t tell anybody! Only my parents and my boyfriend knew. It was a secret, because they wanted to break the news at Comic-Con. I had shows to perform that weekend—[Editor’s note: Gort has long starred in L.A.’s “For the Record” musical theater series, which reimagines musical numbers from films]—so I had to cancel and say I didn’t feel good. My friends were calling me wanting to get coffee, and I was like “Eh, I think I’m gonna stay in.” Meanwhile, I’m in New York in my hotel! I thought I was going to explode.

MA: Well, the news definitely exploded once it broke. And it’s an intimidating thing, playing such a well-known character. What’s your technique for reconciling your portrayal with Kim Cattrall’s?

LG: I had seen every episode of Sex and the City and would watch reruns when they were on, before I got the part—but I don’t watch it right now. What’s interesting is that the shows I had been doing in L.A., we [reinterpreted] movies and their soundtracks, and I found that there are certain nuances of performances audiences respond to, and others that they don’t. So when I started working on Carrie Diaries, I found that I had absorbed what I call “Samantha-isms,” and I could do it naturally.

MA: “Samantha-isms” like what?

LG: My friends and family are always like, “you’re talking like Samantha, you have her tone”—but I can’t determine if I talk a certain way because of her, or if I’ve always talked like her. A lot of the Carrie Diaries crew worked on Sex and the City. The first week—when I needed to hear it the most—some of them would come up to me and say, “It’s so weird how you tilt your head like her” or “The way you hail a cab feels just like Kim.” I’m coming from the point of view of a huge fan. I want to do right by Miss Cattrall.

MA: Samantha is practically synonymous with sex. How do you go about making her appropriate for a slightly younger crowd?

LG: People tend to forget Samantha’s older. So while [on Carrie Diaries] Carrie thinks in ways that are more mature than her age, Samantha’s actually been living this older life. She’s there to teach Carrie, when Carrie is heartbroken, that relationships don’t have to be that hard, that you don’t have to let a man walk all over you. That being said, I do try to teach her a thing or two about sex.

MA: Samantha is kind of the ultimate older-friend for a girl just discovering adulthood.

LG: Yeah, I mean Carrie’s more advanced in her emotions—she’s more vulnerable than Samantha would ever want to admit to being. In any great friendship, each woman complements the other. I couldn’t imagine having six Samanthas as friends.

MA: Oh my God, no. That would just be maneater central. So where is Samantha at, and what is she like, when we meet her?

LG: She’s in her twenties, figuring out everything from what career she wants to have to where she’s going to stay tonight. She’s eternally optimistic. Samantha never worries. To her, it’s always going to work out, and every day is an adventure. She doesn’t have her Birkin or her Manolos yet, but she certainly has her own style.

MA: Yeah, we’ve seen some of your costumes, which seem so spot-on. What’s it been like to dress in her wild, ballsy fashion?

LG: The costumes keep me honest. I definitely work out. There’s a lot of spandex, and short shorts, and sometimes no clothes at all. But I’m more of a T-shirt and jeans girl in real life, so putting on those clothes really helps me get into character. Samantha wouldn’t think twice about putting on the miniskirt and bra top, so I don’t either.

MA: Speaking of bra tops, is it weird to be like “Oh, hey, family members. I’m playing Samantha—you remember Samantha, the sexually liberated one, right?”

LG: Maybe it’s weird to say, but my parents were super excited. They met in high school and they’re still together—they’re hip to everything, they’re more like friends than parents. My mama’s like, “Tell everybody I taught you everything you know!” And my boyfriend thinks it’s the coolest thing—what better character to say your girlfriend is playing than Samantha? But they all can’t believe some of the outfits I’m being shot in. Sorry, Dad!

MA: Just tell him that what with your uncannilly Samantha eyebrow arch, it was destiny, no way around it. The eyebrow is natural, not an acting thing, right?

LG: Oh, it’s natural. I dare you to find a picture where my eyebrow isn’t arched, down to when I was a child. I guess it was meant to be. And now, I can never get Botox.

How awesome is Lindsey? Season two of The Carrie Diaries premieres tonight at 8/7 central on The CW. Tell me this trailer doesn’t give you chills:

And P.S. Click here for our Q+A with Carrie Diaries creator Amy B. Harris on all the connections between SATC and CD.