User:Samantha Sitara

A Nice One Can Only Help was created by soap writer Dianne Messina Stanley to attract young female viewers to Home Box Office, and it was later replaced with Sex and the City. All three lead roles weren't the first choices of the production, meant to be Valeria Golino, Martha Plimpton and Corrie Clark.

Music
The known theme of the series is Edith Piaf song Mon amant de la coloniale covered by actress and choreographer Khandi Alexander. Though only 25 seconds of the song is heard during the opening sequence, the cover gained much interest in America. The full version of the cover was featured in the second season finale. Due to the version's popoularity, Alexander also covered Non, je ne regrette rien for the series finale on 1996, and Un grand amour qui s'achève for the third season's fourth episode.

The idea of these songs were made by "mistake". A couple of weeks before the series debut, producer Andrew Lazar still needed to think of an opening sequence/theme song. Khandi Alexander was the show's choreographer, and she used to sing songs by Aretha Franklin during time-off's. Lazar heard her singing and asked her to record a theme song for the show. At first they thought of a Motown song, but then they agreed on a foreign, unknown song to American people, and picked the song by Piaf.

Soundtrack released 2001 included:
 * Mon amant de la coloniale by Khandi Alexander
 * Un grand amour qui s'achève by Khandi Alexander
 * Non, je ne regrette rien by Khandi Alexander
 * Eternal Life by Jeff Buckley
 * Help Me by Laura Linney
 * Y.M.C.A. by Laura Linney and Kelli Williams
 * Winter Most Be Cold by The Apples in Stereo
 * High Tide by The Apples in Stereo
 * A Change Would Do You Good by Sheryl Crow (theme from Nice Ones)
 * That's The Way I Remember It by Garth Brooks (theme from Sierra)
 * Où sont-ils, mes petits copains by Édith Piaf and Khandi Alexander

Sierra Kirkpatrick
Sierra Althea Kirkpatrick (previously de Groot) is a fictional character on the HBO television series a|A Nice One Can Only Help and its film sequels, a|Nice Ones, a|Sierra and a|30 Last Days In NYC. She is portrayed by Glenne Headly.

Production
The character of Sierra was supposed to be younger (in her early twenties) and the part was even offered to Martha Plimpton, like in the book, but author Terry McMillan suggested the creators to make Sierra older in the television series, as a mother-like person to the two other girls. Lorraine Bracco revealed she was interested in the part, but they finally picked Glenne Headly.

Fictional biography
Sierra was raised in a luxurious family in the New York suburbs, when both her parents were big-world-socialites. She was foreced to go to Yale, but didn't graduate, and she moved to Greenwich Village to an apartment where she lived all her years until moving to Rio de Janeiro. She apprently lived with Jason Priestley in the same apartment "until he went for shooting 90210". On the eighties she mainly designed elite fashion for women rock bands and was even the agent of some of them, until she joined Mascara.

Through all the series, Sierra is very open-minded and was even catagorized as a hippie, living the 80s spirit all during the new decade of the 1990s. This characteristic was very edged next to Laura Linney's character, who was a 90s girl with all the Generation X phenomenons of flannel shirts, grunge music et cetera, while Sierra edged funky clothing of pink and blue, 80s disco music and the spirit of a baby boomer.

Jo Broot
Johanan "Jo" Broot-Northop is a fictional character on the HBO television series a|A Nice One Can Only Help and its film sequels, a|Nice Ones, Sierra and a|30 Last Days In NYC. He is portrayed by Jesse L. Martin in the television series and singer D'Angelo in the film sequels.

Production
In Stanley's mind, the character of Jo wasn't black, but it had blind casting like to all the characters. Peter Krause was in the run for the part, but at the end the Jesse L. Martin was cast. Martin had problems with the character becoming gay in the second season (although he later played a gay character in Rent), but finally adjust to the change.

For the film, Martin didn't accept taking the role because earlier agreements with Rent. Stanley and Garry Marshall didn't agree on losing the character for the movie so the finally had to cast another character, which was unexperienced singer D'Angelo. He had problems with playing a gay role too, claiming it could "hurt his fanbase". This statement gained a lot of criticsm, but he finally acted the role for all three movies.