Rise to Fame
Getting killed off Melrose Place as a villain so hated audiences demanded her removal turned out to be the best audition she could have run. Sex and the City cast her as Charlotte York specifically as the show's moral counterweight, and Davis committed to the earnestness without softening it into a joke. Charlotte, the romantic in a series that spent six seasons arguing romance was a trap, shouldn't have landed. She did, mostly because Davis played the character as someone who had actually thought about her values.
In the Spotlight
And Just Like That ran three seasons on Max before ending in 2025, and Davis didn't pretend to be fine with how the final season closed. She said publicly it didn't feel like a real goodbye and has been pushing for more content since. Whether that happens depends on IP negotiations she doesn't control. In the meantime, she runs Are You a Charlotte?, a podcast dedicated to the franchise. The show had its detractors, but her performance consistently got a pass even from critics who were done with the franchise.
Side Notes
A stepfather adopted her in childhood, a detail that quietly reframes her own adoption story. In 2011, she adopted a daughter she named Gemma Rose, not registering at the time that Charlotte's biological daughter in the show is also named Rose. Seven years later, she adopted a son after her daughter asked for a Black little brother. Davis, who is white, has been direct about taking that responsibility seriously, including learning to style Black hair. She's been sober since her teens, which makes her years on a show where cocktails were a personality type quietly ironic.