Jason Lewis says he starved before he was signed for 'Sex and the City'
Los Angeles, July 26
Actor Jason Lewis has opened up on the struggles he faced during the initial phase of his acting career. The 55-year-old actor and former model shot to fame in 2003 after essaying the role of Smith Jerrod, the model boyfriend of Samantha Jones in the iconic show 'Sex and the City'.
Prior to the show, he appeared in the HBO series, however, Lewis says he "starved," barely scraping by for several months while living in Paris.
Jason appeared on the recent episode of Kristin Davis's 'Am I A Charlotte?' podcast, and told the host that before being cast as Smith, he went through a "six-month starvation period" after traveling to France's capital city to pursue modeling.
At 21, Lewis said he went to Paris as a "young punk" with "no real intention". He shared that he traveled to the European destination with a "three-month ticket" paid for by a modeling agency, which he later "ripped up" and decided to extend his stay.
The host told him, "So you're there, you tear up the ticket, it goes well?" Jason revealed that it was actually not the case, "No, I starved for a while".
"I would case a bakery and steal a baguette, and then I would run", the actor recalled with a laugh. "And then I would go to, like, an outdoor cafe and take a pot of their mustard and dump it on and then I'd have mustard-bread sandwiches for a lot of my meals".
He further mentioned, "I think my first, like, decent money started coming in about a year and a half later. So there was like a six-month starvation period".
"I could buy this one cucumber and this piece of cheese. It was easy to stay skinny, though, I'll tell you what", he added.
He also "slept on floors" in Paris, he recalled, up until he "got a booking and started making money", which got the ball rolling on his acting career.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Interesting perspective from an American actor. I guess the 'starving artist' trope is universal. But in India, we see so many young people coming to Mumbai with dreams of making it big, and many end up sleeping on railway platforms or sharing cramped rooms. At least he had a modeling agency that paid for his ticket initially.
Honestly, this is a bit tone-deaf for me. He's a model-turned-actor who ended up in a massive hit show like Sex and the City. Meanwhile, countless people in India face real starvation daily, not as a temporary phase to chase a dream. But I respect his honesty about the struggle." 🤷♀️
"I could buy this one cucumber and this piece of cheese" - that's like most college students in India living on hostel mess food, lol. But seriously, it's fascinating how different the struggle is in the West vs India. Here, you'd have to worry about family pressure, arranged marriage deadlines, and 'log kya kahenge' while chasing your dreams.
The fact that he ripped up his return ticket to stay in Paris and chase his dream is bold. We see similar stories in India where people burn their bridges to make it in the film industry. But I wish he'd acknowledged the privilege of having a modeling agency support him initially. Still, his story about stealing baguettes is oddly charming.
Smith Jerrod from SATC is iconic! 🎬 But reading this, I can't help but think of the many Indian actors who started as extras or in small theatre groups
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