TV

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - "I think " Larry Sanders" started it all," demurs "Sex and the City"'s Kristin Davis when asked if there's some glory in her show being the grande dame in HBO's unequaled stable of cutting-edge, critic-slaying series.

"I really don't think HBO would've felt confident about starting up all those shows without having had what they considered success with Larry Sanders," says the actress, who guest-starred on the show in 1993. "They didn't care if it was a hit or not. They liked it and the critics liked it and that whet their appetite for having more original programs."

Fair enough - but even Davis has to admit that, as its fifth season gets underway, "Sex" is every bit as fierce, fresh and funny as it was from the get-go. She just doesn't do it right away.

"Actually, we were just joking the other day about the pilot," she says instead. "The pilot was not a funny show. No one knew what was going on, it had horrible lighting and there was no vibe ... just like a little hint of what the show could be.

" But I agree," she finally confesses, " It is miraculous and I credit [executive producer] Michael Patrick King all the way. He took over for Darren [Star] when Darren went off to do his other shows, and he just brought such depth with him. He took a lot of risks in terms of our direction and that's a hard thing to do with a hit."

An equal miracle is that, on a show starring four beautiful, dynamic women - each of whom has had to step aside while the other's character takes her time in the spotlight - " the girls" are famously, publicly devoted to one another.

" A 'happy set' is not really how I would describe it, though," Davis says. " That old-fashioned adage 'death is easy, comedy is hard' is true. It's very hard. And so when people say 'Oh, you must have so much fun!' Well we do ... but it's hard-work fun. It's not happy-go-lucky fun. When you're in a hit TV show, it's like an arranged marriage - you didn't pick the people, but you're stuck with them. I'm just so thankful that we each respect each other and we love each other - not for the fun so much."

The doomed marriage of poor Charlotte York, the disheartened new divorcee that Davis plays on the show, didn't fare quite as well. At the end of Season Four, Charlotte was struggling to accept the end of her union and ultimately offered to let Sarah Jessica Parker's newly unengaged Carrie Bradshaw pawn Charlotte's own pricey wedding set to buy herself an apartment.

But, as longtime fans well know, it ain't always over when it's over. So what's the truth about Trey [Kyle MacLachlan]?

" I'm not too sure," Davis says. " I know that Kyle will be around, but I am not sure in what sense - like that doesn't mean we're reconciling. So I think it is certainly unresolved. It's unresolved and it needs to be resolved, let's put it that way. IT'S A PROBLEM!"

Does she wish for any particular outcome?

" I'll tell ya," the actress says, " we all completely lose our sense of separation. All last year I was like, Pleeease! Kyle can't leave!' - which is also exactly how Charlotte felt about Trey. But by the end of the year, once we'd wrapped and everything, I was like, 'Huh. Maybe it is time for her to move on. Which is exactly what she is thinking: 'Maybe it is time for me to move on.'"

Could it be, then, that Davis really is a lot like her character, despite her frequent protestations?

>" That's what I said for like the first two years, because that was all anybody talked about," she chuckles. " People talked to me like I was her. I wanted to wear a sign: 'I'M NOT HER!' But as time goes on, I'm like, 'Hmmmmm ... I'm not really all that different. You know, like sometimes they bring me clothes for photo shoots, and I'm like, 'I can't wear thaaaaat!' So I think, 'Oh no! I'm not a prude!' but then I realize that, to a lot of people, I probably am."

But you can't accuse her of being old-fashioned. Despite Charlotte's mad dash for the altar, the Colorado-born, South Carolina-raised Davis admits, " Someone would really have to talk me into getting married. I don't really know why. My knee-jerk response is that, in South Carolina where I grew up, at the time they were still very focused on getting married. The girls were all debutantes, and people would get engaged in college and get married when they got out. I never saw myself doing that, even back then. I was always just, 'Ohhhh, I don't think that's for me!'"

Instead of lifelong love, Davis discovered acting during her own college years. " I did a commercial for the State of New Jersey when I was at Rutgers," she recalls. " It was for New Jersey tourism, and I went up in a hot-air balloon with another student from Rutgers and we talked about the joys of New Jersey." After graduation, she took work where she could find it, including the Sanders gig and a stint as an R.N. on " General Hospital". And then along came a little potboiler called " Melrose Place".

As America quickly took notice of the dark-haired, doe-eyed beauty, Davis' character, neurotic rich girl Brooke Armstrong, managed to achieve a dubious coup. By capturing - then crushing - the heart of kind-hearted cutie Billy Campbell, played by kind-hearted cutie Andrew Shue, Brooke made viewers loathe her even more than Heather Locklear's scheming Amanda Woodward.

" Oh Billy ... whatever!" says Davis with playful disgust. " I was so sick of hearing about Billy! People were always shouting at me about Billy! I never want to hear that name again!"

But she doesn't argue that the show was her springboard.

" In the beginning, I enjoyed it very much," she says. " I was happy to have a job of any kind that lasted more than a week, and I was happy to be part of a show that I enjoyed as a viewer. But Darren Star hired me ... and then he left to do Central Park West. When he was there, he thought of my character as being kind of funny. In a warped way, in a manipulative way, but still kind of funny. And when he left, they were like, 'Oh God! We gotta think up things for her.' And the things that they thought up were very not funny."

So Davis took her " death" in stride, then got a taste of just how much of an impression she had made on the nighttime soap.

" Right away I got a bunch of offers for all kinds of bizarre versions of [Melrose]. I had a really smart manager then, who I still have, and he said, 'If we don't turn them down now, that's what you're going to do forever.' He said, 'I really think that some comedy would be good,' and I was like 'Ohhh, I can never get a sitcom!' 'Cause I used to test for sitcoms all the time and they would always say, 'She's not funny enough.' Always!"

Her manager stuck to his guns and eventually his client hit the comedy jackpot, landing a guest role as one of Seinfeld's most memorable girlfriends: Hers was the toothbrush that tumbled into the toity. The episode proved Davis' comic talents ... and flushed out an old friend too. Former Melrose producer Darren Star caught the show and decided she'd be perfect in his newest project - a smart, saucy, enormous risk called " Sex and the City".

The rest is television history, despite her earlier assessment of the show's pilot. " Sex" has remained a ratings smash since its second season, and its stars are year-round media darlings courtesy of stuff like their 2001 Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy? victory, a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, Cynthia Nixon's recent protest arrest and Sarah Jessica Parker's mysterious marital status (though the mystery appears to have been solved by the May announcement of Parker's pregnancy).

And then there is the tantalizing matter of Ms. Davis' love life, which often earns her more press than any of the other stars. In the past year alone, she has been linked to actors Alec Baldwin and Jeff Goldblum.

" I'm the single one!" she wails of her share of the spotlight. " Do I have a sense of humor about it? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. I find it kind of weird and fascinating, and I feel very separate from it. They never get it right, for one thing. And even when they get something semi-right, it's usually way after the fact. It's hysterical!"

Hysterical enough that she might let this reporter get it all the way right? No such luck.

" I'll tell you why ... you can write this instead," Davis says gamely, embarking on a tale of her attempt to help a " very, very nice" reporter from the New York Times, who intended to celebrate the series launch with an article on how it's just a funnier version of real life. Discovering that Parker, Nixon and Kim Cattrall were each in committed relationships, the scribe called Davis in a panic, asking for a memorable dating story.

So Davis offered up the cautionary story of two men who did what she describes as " the meanest thing that anyone had ever done to me. Not like breaking my heart or anything - just mean.

"I was completely fine with it. It wasn't still upsetting me or I never would have told her! So I tell her and don't think anything more about it. I'm like, 'Hey, at least I had a story to tell!'" A story that, indeed, made it to the Times. The epilogue could very well be a "Sex and the City" story line.

"Six months later, it gets back to me that these men have read it and can't believe that I told the story - even though I didn't tell their names - and they will never forgive me and have decided that I am just really immature because I am not over it yet. I am like, 'This is hysterical!' I mean, first of all, they were the mean ones. Second of all, I am too over it. And third of all, you can't get away with anything these days!"

And then her inner Charlotte pops back to the surface.

"Not that I care about what these two guys thought," Davis says, "but I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't want to cause any more problems than there are out there in the world. I just don't have this stuff figured out yet!"

We both laugh, and then Davis sighs cheerfully and makes me an offer I can't refuse.

"When I get it all figured out, I'll be sure to let you know!"

"Sex and the City" airs Sunday nights on HBO.