That is one way to discover French cuisine, though probably not the method tourism boards prefer.
How long did the rough period last?
Lewis, now 55, said the leanest part of that chapter lasted about six months. He also told Davis, 61, that he slept on floors during that time.
“I think my first like decent money started coming in about a year and a half later,” he said. “So there was like a six-month starvation period where I could buy this one cucumber and this piece of cheese.”
He added, with some dry understatement: “It was easy to stay skinny, though.”
The comments came as part of a broader reflection on the years before his better-known television work. Lewis eventually found success as a model and actor, but his version of the origin story is not exactly the clean, inspirational montage. It had more mustard.
When did he join Sex and the City?
Lewis made his Sex and the City debut in 2003, during the show’s sixth and final season. He was 32 at the time.
His character, Smith Jerrod, was introduced as a young model and actor who became romantically involved with Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall. Samantha, a publicist, helped Smith’s career rise, while their relationship developed into one of the show’s more unexpectedly serious pairings.
On the series, Smith stayed with Samantha during her cancer treatment. The characters were still together when the HBO comedy wrapped in 2004.
Lewis later returned as Smith in the 2008 Sex and the City film and again in the 2010 sequel. By then, Smith and Samantha had split, though they remained friends on-screen.
Why wasn’t Smith in And Just Like That?
Lewis was not brought back for And Just Like That, HBO’s revival of the franchise. The reboot continued without Cattrall as a main cast member and ended after three seasons.
Cattrall did not sign on for the series, apart from a brief cameo in Season 2. Her absence followed years of publicly reported tension with Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Carrie Bradshaw.
In a 2017 interview with Piers Morgan, Cattrall said she had “never been friends” with her castmates, a comment widely understood to include Parker, Davis and Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda Hobbes. As ever with this franchise, the off-screen discourse became its own subscription package.
What has Jason Lewis been doing recently?
Lewis was relatively quiet publicly after competing on Season 31 of Dancing With the Stars in 2022.
He resurfaced in May with a personal update, saying he had moved to Costa Rica. He also said he had written a nine-book fantasy series, though the project has not yet been revealed.
“After three years, it was time,” he wrote in the caption.
For viewers who mainly remember him as Smith, the Paris story adds a sharper edge to the usual “before they were famous” arc. Before the HBO role, the movie appearances and the franchise discourse, Lewis says there was a floor to sleep on, a cucumber, a piece of cheese and the world’s least luxurious mustard sandwich.
