AIDS will play a starring role in “The Carrie Diaries.”
The CW’s “Sex and The City” prequel — set in 1984 — plans to address the consequences of promiscuity and drug use during the homosexual coming of age, producer Amy B. Harris says.
“I don’t think we can play a series that takes place in the ’80s and in New York and not examine that,” she told TV critics in Los Angeles Sunday. “And we really hope to.”
The show — premiering Monday — also features at least one young character who is struggling with his own sexuality.
“The Carrie Diaries” introduces viewers to 16 year-old Carrie Bradshaw. Struggling to cope with the loss of her mother, she accepts an internship at a Manhattan Law Firm and quickly becomes entrenched in the city’s booming nightlife scene.
“We want to talk in a real authentic way about what the 80s was like,” Harris tells The Post.
“We have a joke in one of our episodes about Ecstasy. It was legal in the ’80s. It didn’t become illegal until like 1987. You know how prevalent the drug culture was in a non-shameful (way). In the 80s, in stead of sending them to rehab, they were like ‘Give me some.’ So we really want to be authentic to that time.”
Harris says the show has “created some consequences for the characters who have done too many drugs or drank too much alcohol.”
Rather than having a character die, it is likely to be handled “sort of the way we did it on Sex and The City,” she says, “where the characters go to a funeral of someone who has died.”
“There were people dying of AIDS all through the 80s, so I certainly wouldn’t say no to that.”
Harris also answered some other burning questions about the series:
Will viewers meet young Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte during season one?
“No,” Harris says. “Whether or not we start mentioning the potential of someone’s roommate… that’s possible. Hopefully the audience will fall in love with Carrie Bradshaw at 16, learn about her world and all these other people in it, and then we will slowly integrate these other characters.”
Carrie is a virgin when we meet her. When might she possibly have her “first time”?
“We have definitely been talking about it a lot,” Harris says. “That is obviously a first that means a lot to everybody. It shapes you. But we haven’t nailed it down yet.”
Interview magazine is featured prominently in the show. Any plans to cast someone as Andy Warhol?
“Andy is becoming the looming large potentially sort of Charlie from ‘Charlie Angels’ (figure) for us,” she says. “So yes. He is definitely going to be talked about and around in the universe. Whether we end up casting someone — or he is the sort of man behind the scenes — we haven’t quite decided. But Interview, that was a magazine that was so influential and we are very excited to use that on the show.”