Carrie Bradshaw came face-to-face with the famous date doctor
And just like that… Will Smith was at Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker’s front door.
Eva Mendes might have played Smith’s love interest in the hit 2005 rom-com Hitch, but the actor’s most memorable kiss in the film came from his co-star, Kevin James. Directed by Andy Tennant (Sweet Home Alabama), Hitch starred Smith as “date doctor” Alex Hitchens, a.k.a. Hitch, who helps hopeless romantics like Albert Brennaman (James) find the women of their dreams.
About midway through the New York City-based rom-com, Hitch helps the awkward Albert prepare for his first kiss. For practice, Hitch roleplays as his date and asks Albert to walk him home. Choosing a random house for the exercise, Hitch links arms with his client and approaches the front door of a home near where they’re walking. Hitch then explains the “90/10 method”: the man goes 90 percent of the way in for a kiss and pauses, allowing his date to close the gap for the final 10 percent.
“Will looked around at the location in the West Village and said, ‘This is beautiful; why are we only shooting half a page here?’” Tennant previously revealed. “We got onto a conversation of walking a girl to the door, and Will said, ‘Have you ever heard of the 90/10?’ So he explained what 90/10 was, and Kevin, Will, and myself start riffing on jiggling keys, and we decide that we’re going to do a scene where Will walks Kevin to the door.”
But without a permit to film a new sequence, Smith and Tennant had to go door-to-door, hoping to get permission from a homeowner to use the front of their place. And the result was something that could only happen in New York City.
“We literally pick a brownstone, go up the stairs, and knock on the door together, and guess who opens the door?” Tennant teased. “Sarah Jessica Parker. It’s her apartment. And she looks at us like, ‘Wait, hi, what, what’s going on?’ And we ask if we can use her stoop for a scene that we haven’t written yet, and she’s like, ‘Sure!’ So that door is actually where Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker live.”