It is without a doubt one of the most memorable television series from the late 90s and early aughts, but it wasn’t just Carrie Bradshaw and her friends that Sex and the City introduced to viewers around the globe.

Plenty of well-known famous faces secured their first big break on the award-winning HBO show, and have gone on to enjoy very successful careers after hanging out on set with Sarah Jessica Parker – so it clearly didn’t hurt to land a small-bit part on one of the most successful rom-com dramas of all time.

Sex and the City first hit television screens back in June 1998 and follows the lives of newspaper columnist Carrie and her three best friends: Samantha Jones, Charlotte York, and Miranda Hobbes, as they navigate their busy lives, as well as sex, dating, and successful careers, all whilst sipping cosmopolitans at fancy bars in Manhattan.

Kim Cattrall took on the role of ‘man-eater’ Samantha, while Cynthia Nixon portrayed redhead lawyer Miranda, and Kristin Davis transformed into Park Avenue princess Charlotte. Both Nixon, 58, and Davis, 59, have reprised their roles in the spin-off series And Just Like That alongside Parker, also 59.

Season three of And Just Like That is currently filming in New York City, and it seems that HBO are still very keen on cameos – with Parker spotted filming scenes with various well-known actors over the past month or so.

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Sex and the City ran for six seasons and starred Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, and Sarah Jessica Parker

Miranda Hobbes, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York, and Carrie Bradshaw are the best of friends living in New York City

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Parker is currently filming season three of the SATC spinoff And Just Like That and was spotted doing a scene with Jonathan Cake last week

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The O.C. star Logan Marshal-Green is also making a cameo in the Sex and the City spinoff series And Just Like That

Last week, the actress put on a very busty display as she shot an evening scene with Desperate Housewives actor Jonathan Cake – leading fans to speculate whether or not Carrie will be romantically involved with this hunky new character.

And at the beginning of July, Parker was photographed filming scenes in the exact same location alongside The O.C. star Logan Marshall-Green, but the details of his character are currently unknown, and it’s unclear if he will be a potential love interest for Carrie too.

But while Carrie’s gold-plated personalized necklace and Upper East Side apartment were permanent fixtures on the original show, other details are much more fleeting – including many of the celeb cameos.

Creator Darren Star and executive producer Michael Patrick King invited a plethora of famous faces to enjoy a role on Sex and the City, and many were already pretty well-known in their own right.

Spice Girl Geri Halliwell made a short but sweet appearance in the 10h episode of season six playing a woman named Phoebe, who bumps into Samantha on the streets of Manhattan on a hot summer’s day and brags about the pool at Soho House.

Another successful music star who enjoyed a brief stint on SATC is Canadian-American singer Alanis Morissette, who ends up kissing Carrie at a house party during a raunchy game of spin the bottle.

Supermodel Heidi Klum and Boogie Nights actress Heather Graham both enjoyed memorable scenes with Parker’s Carrie, as did Scottish actor Alan Cumming and Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey.

But while many of these stars are instantly recognizable, even two decades later, some of the celebrities who feature in SATC look worlds away from their current selves – and fans would be forgiven for not recognizing them at all.

Here, DailyMail.com takes a trip down memory lane at some of the most unrecognizable stars of Sex and the City….

Years before winning two Grammy Awards, Bradley Cooper was a random guy in a bar called Jake

Bradley Cooper began his television and film career playing Jake in a 1999 episode of Sex and the City

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His character ends up embarrassing Carrie when he finds a magazine with her face on it

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Bradley played the role of Jack Maine in 2018’s A Star Is Born alongside Lady Gaga

Bradley Cooper is perhaps one of the best known faces to have graced Sex and the City who has gone on to have the most successful career.

The Hollywood hunk was just 24 years old when his episode, entitled They Shoot Single People, Don’t They? aired in 1999 – and it’s Bradley’s first ever acting credit.

He played a random guy called Jake in the fourth episode of season two, who meets Carrie in a Manhattan bar and proceeds to take her for a spin in his Porsche.

After enjoying a racy kiss in the car, Carrie and Jake’s night together is cut short when he stops to buy cigarettes and ends up seeing the latest issue of New York Magazine – which has a rather unflattering photo of Carrie on the cover.

When Jake returns to the car with a copy of the publication, Carrie is left red-faced and swiftly lets herself out of the vehicle and heads home alone.

Cooper’s appearance in SATC led to more TV and film roles, in particular playing Will Tippin in 46 episodes of the TV series Alias – which was created by J. J. Abrams.

By 2009, Cooper had racked up film credits such as Wedding Crashers, Yes Man, He’s Just Not That Into You, and The Hangover – in which he played Phil Wenneck who ends up on a wild bachelor weekend in Las Vegas.

Fast forward to 2024, and Cooper is not only a father to his seven-year-old daughter Lea de Seine – whom he shares with his ex, Irina Shayk – but he’s also won various accolades for his onscreen talents, including two Grammy Awards for his musical work on A Star is Born alongside Lady Gaga.

Kat Dennings enjoyed her first big break onscreen alongside Kim Cattrall playing bratty teen Jenny Brier

Kat Dennings was 13 years old when she portrayed Jenny Brier in season three of Sex and the City

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Dennings character was a precocious bratty teenager who hired Samantha to do the PR for her bat mitzvah

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Dennings starred in the TV sitcom 2 Broke Girls alongside Beth Behrs from 2011 until 2017

Kat Dennings is best known for her roles as Max Black in the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls, and Darcy Lewis in various Marvel movies – but her very first onscreen credit was Sex and the City.

More than two decades ago, Dennings enjoyed a very memorable role playing the part of a bratty teenager named Jenny Brier in a September 2000 episode of the show called Hot Child in the City.

Dennings enjoyed a fair few scenes with Cattrall, as she hired Samantha’s PR services – using her rich father’s money – to organize a star-studded bash for her bat mitzvah, a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony for girls that marks their transition into adulthood at the age 12.

At one point, Jenny and her precocious friends bump into Carrie, Samantha, and Miranda in a Manhattan restaurant – and the four women are stunned at how grown up – and explicit – the teenage girls are.

At one point, Jenny labels Samantha a ‘grandma’ after she lectures them about being ‘a little young’ for sex talk and tries to convince them to enjoy being kids while they can.

During an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2022, Dennings revealed that when the episode aired, her mom had invited her friends over to tune in – but she quickly turned the television off when she realized her daughter’s character was talking about sex and blowjobs in certain scenes.

A year after her Sex and the City episode aired, Dennings starred as Sarah Stewart in 22 episodes of the TV sitcom Raising Dad, and her first movie credit came in 2004 when she played Sloane in the Hilary Duff movie Raise Your Voice.

Dennings reunited with SATC executive producer King in 2011 and enjoyed a main role in 2 Broke Girls, which ran for six seasons until April 2017.

The Thor actress currently resides in Los Angeles with her musician husband, Andrew W.K., whom she married in November 2023.

Tony Hale suffered a rather embarrassing moment when he took on the role of Tiger in season four

Tony Hale played a photographer’s assistant called Tiger in a season four episode called The Real Me

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The actor starred alongside Jeff Forney in the hilarious scene, which saw his character stunned by Samantha’s naked body

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Tony as Buster Bluth in an episode of Arrested Development alongside Henry Winkler (right)

Fans know him for his role as Buster Bluth on Arrested Development, but once upon a time Tony Hale was ogling a naked Kim Cattrall and getting to call it ‘work.’

The 53-year-old enjoyed a very small, but hilarious, role in the second episode of season four called The Real Me, which sees Carrie take to the runway as a model, and Samantha star in her very own nude photo shoot.

A fresh-faced Tony makes his appearance as Tiger about seven minutes into the episode when he assists the photographer (played by Jeff Forney) who Samantha has hired to take the racy pictures of her.

The scene in question sees the photographer attempt to put Samantha at ease as she enters the studio wearing a white robe, however, he needn’t bother as she quickly drops the garment to the floor – leaving Tiger shell-shocked.

In a 2020 interview on The Bradshaw Boys podcast, Hale admitted that he was ‘so petrified’ when he landed the part of Tiger because SATC was ‘the big gig to get’ at the time.

He also admitted that he made an ‘a**’ of himself on set because he thought it would be a good idea to apologize to Cattrall for objectifying her ahead of the scene, and recalled: ‘She thought I was a freak and did not even look me in the eyes for the rest of the day.’

However, it didn’t put him off as Hale then went on star in an episode of another hugely popular HBO show – The Sopranos – and then an episode of Dawson’s Creek, before landing his role on Arrested Development in 2003.

Several years later, he played Gary Walsh on the HBO comedy Veep from 2012 until its conclusion in 2019, for which he won the 2013 and 2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

Timothy Olyphant will forever be known as Carrie Bradshaw’s sexy 20-something fling Sam

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Timothy Olyphant played a random guy called Sam in the very first season of Sex and the City

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Olyphant’s character ends up spending the night with Carrie, but she’s shocked when she wakes up in his messy apartment the next day

Timothy Olyphant got up close and personal with Parker in the very first season of SATC in the fourth episode entitled Valley of the Twenty-Something Guys.

The actor, who is now 56, played a random guy called Sam who Carrie meets at a party and ends up heading to a bar with him, where they kiss for five hours.

Later on in the episode, Carrie meets up with Sam again as she’s already feeling unsure about how Mr. Big (Chris Noth) feels about her and decides to go shopping at Banana Republic to help Sam pick out a new shirt.

The duo ends up getting frisky in the fitting room, and Carrie later meets Sam at a bar after being left disappointed by her first supposed date with Big. She ends up spending the night with him, but is shocked when she wakes up in his messy apartment the next day.

Prior to his role as Carrie’s lover, Olyphant had starred in a couple of movies – including 1997’s Scream 2 – and has gone on to bag credits in various films and television shows such as The Office, Fargo, and Daisy Jones & the Six.

Most recently, the actor has starred in films Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Starling, and Amsterdam, and also has a part in the upcoming movie Havoc, featuring Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker.

Olyphant has been married to his college sweetheart, Alexis Knief, since 1991, and the couple live in Westwood, Los Angeles, and have three children together.

Amy Sedaris enjoyed a four-episode stint as Carrie’s erratic book publisher named Courtney Masterson

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Amy Sedaris played the role of book publisher Courtney Masterson in four episodes of Sex and the City

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Sedaris and Parker pictured here in a scene from season four where Carrie enjoys her book launch party

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Sedaris is friends with Parker in real life and the ladies are pictured here with Andy Cohen

Amy Sedaris first pops up as book publisher Courtney Masterson in the second episode of season five of SATC in July 2002 when Carrie is first approached about turning her sex column into a book.

Sedaris, 63, stars alongside Molly Shannon – who plays her colleague, Lily Martin – in the brief stint, which sees Carrie get rather stressed at times as she tries to decide on what to wear for her upcoming book cover.

The writer often looks uncomfortable when she’s in the presence of Courtney and Lily – especially at her fancy book launch, as Courtney often appears desperate about finding a man.

Speaking about her role in SATC years later, Sedaris said: ‘When I think of how long I was in hair and makeup for that show… it takes a long time to try to look good and I was just like, “Oh my God, Frankenstein wore less makeup than I was for Sex and the City!” I’m glad I got to work on that show.’

The actress and comedian certainly wasn’t unknown when she appeared in the four episodes of SATC, as she had already enjoyed a regular spot on the Late Show with David Letterman, as well as the TV sitcom Strangers with Candy.

She’s also good friends with Parker and starred alongside her in the HBO comedy-drama series Divorce, which ran for three seasons from 2016 until 2019.

She also enjoyed success with her own TV sitcom At Home with Amy Sedaris, which featured many celeb cameos from stars such as Susan Sarandon, Paul Rudd, and Parker’s husband Matthew Broderick.

A decade before landing a role in Glee, Matthew Morrison served Carrie as an unnamed waiter in NYC

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Matthew Morrison played a random busboy who serves Carrie in a season two episode of SATC

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The actor became a household name when he landed the role of Will Schuester in Glee

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Matthew is now a 45-year-old married father-of-two and has many TV credits to his name

Ten years before finding huge TV success as Will Schuester on Glee, Matthew Morrison played an unnamed busboy in the very same episode that featured Bradley Cooper.

They Shoot Single People, Don’t They? is the instalment that sees Carrie left mortified when a bad photograph of her is used on the cover of New York Magazine with the strap line: ‘Single and Fabulous?’

The scene involving Morrison, now 45, occurs at the very end of the episode when Carrie decides to take herself out for lunch and a glass of wine to prove that she’s perfectly fine being single.

Reminiscing about his role in SATC years later during an interview with Access Hollywood, Morrison said: ‘Yes, my scene was actually with Sarah Jessica Parker. I was 19 years old.

‘I played a bus boy and I think my line was, “Will anyone else be joining you?” and then I walked away. It was supposed to be at a restaurant, but they shot it [outdoors in] New York.’

Morrison continued: ‘The only thing I remember was I walked into this doorway, but the door was closed, so I had to like, tuck into this doorway, but if you look into the reflection you can see my a**, like hanging out, just like trying to be really cool.’

After appearing on SATC, Morrison landed parts in shows such as Hack, Law & Order, Ghost Whisperer and CSI: Miami – before Glee began in 2009.

When the musical comedy drama series came to an end in 2015 after six seasons, the actor starred in various popular TV series such as The Good Wife, Grey’s Anatomy and American Horror Story: 1984.

Most recently, Morrison – who is married to Renee Puente and has a young son and a daughter – took on the role of Billy Flynn in the stage show Chicago, performing in Japan.

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David Duchovny enjoyed a cameo in season six playing Carrie’s high school sweetheart Jeremy

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Sarah Michelle Gellar has a very memorable scene as a movie executive called Debbie

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Matthew McConaughey plays himself in the exact same episode as Gellar and tells Carrie he wants to sleep with her

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Lucy Liu also plays herself and ends up firing Samantha as her press representative

But while you could argue that some of these stars owe their big break to Sex and the City, there’s plenty of celebrities who already had successful careers before enjoying a cameo on the show.

Rockstar Jon Bon Jovi and actor David Duchovny both got to enjoy the role of love interest for Carrie, with the latter playing her high school sweetheart Jeremy – who she reunites with in season six.

Jon Bon Jovi was almost 40 when he starred in the 13th episode of season two playing a guy named Seth, who Carrie meets at therapy and ends up sleeping with.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was a household name when she played an intimidating junior development executive named Debbie who Carrie meets with during a work trip to Los Angeles in season three.

Matthew McConaughey makes a cameo in the exact same episode as Gellar, playing himself, and ends up telling Carrie that he wants to sleep with her – which she politely declines.

Lucy Liu also plays herself in SATC and stars alongside Cattrall in a couple of memorable scenes in a season four episode called Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda in which she fires Samantha as her press representative.

Sex and the City seasons 1-6 are available to stream on Max and Netflix now.