WE CHALLENGED SEX AND THE CITY'S SENSIBLE CHARLOTTE TO FACE DOWN HER TWO BIGGEST FEARS: HEIGHTS AND SNAKES. GEROMINO!

IN THE BAD DREAM, KRISTIN DAVIS IS FALLING. She's walking in a Victorian mansion. It's dark and spooky. A camera crew trails her, waiting to document the terror that Kristin senses is waiting arounf every corner. Even swamped in her fear, she's afraid she's blocking the camera and ruining the scene—an actress to the end. Suddenly, at the top of a long flight of stairs, she turns, loses her balance, and falls . . . and falls . . . and falls . . .
     I'm thinking of this dream as I watch Kristin shuffle to the open rear hatch of a perfectly good airplane and perch on the edge, preparing to jump out. From the look of abject horror in her eyes, she's thinking about it, too. We're 10,000 feet high. The wind is whipping by the door. And Kristin Davis is about to leap headfirst into her worst nightmare.
     Earlier than day, when we arrived at a skydiving school in upstate New York, I doubted that Kristin would even get on that plane, let alone jump out of it. And really, why would she? HBO, the network that pays her a hefty seven-figure salary per season to costar on its Emmy-winning show Sex and the City, has discouraged her from going. Her fellow cast members—the ones she's "as close to as sisters"—don't even know she's here. And last night, before she went to bed, her mother reminded her that her stepsister—a commercial pilot, no less—was so terrified when she tried to skydive herself that her instructor had to push her out of the plane.
     Oh, and did we mention that she also has a history of fainting?
     "As you can imagine," Kristin says, "I didn't sleep very well."
     Here we are, at a tiny airstrip about 30 minutes from Woodstock. It's a cross between a hippie commune and an Air Force base: scruffy tents, dilapidated trailers, a canopy covering a central staging area. We are ushered into the "classroom," a rusty, broken-down school bus with a TV monitor. To the left of the TV sits a small statue of the Grim Reaper. (I am not making this up!) Inside, an instructional video is cued; it feels more like a sitcom's blooper segment: The tape's cursory demonstrations of arching and landing are aborted when the instructors fall over laughing; a soundtrack of Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix plays throughout, adding to the whole "we were stoned when we shot this" vibe. None of this, mind you, seems particularly educational.
     The waivers we all have to sign, however—with their overblown "you die, it's on you" language—deliver a dose of unescapable reality. I consider briefly if this is the right time to mention to Kristin that about 35 Americans perish each year skydiving. I think better of it. Beside I'm going to be jumping with her. Why spook myself?
     "My lawyer would kill me if he knew I was signing this!" she exclaims, flashing her most plucky and courageous grin but appearing a bit pale as she clambers out of the bus in her jeans and T-shirt. Still, we've been told we will receive a two-hour training course before we actually jump with our tandem-diving partner, so there is no need to panic—yet.
     "Next jump group, you're going in 10 minutes! Get suited up!" yells a passing instructor. Maybe panic is entirely appropriate.
     "But what about the two-hour class?" Kristin asks. "Two-hour class? Who told you that? Time to suit up!" the instructor bellows back.
     The corners of Kristin's mouth curl down. "This is bad," she says. "I'm not ready for this. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. As an actress, there's nothing worse than not knowing your cues.
     She's clearly ready to back out. Then Geoff appears.
     Geoff the Dashing British Instructor (GDBI), masculine in that Old Spice-cologne kind of way, sweeps in. Six-foot-six and 225 pounds with a crew cut, deep-set blue eyes, and character-enhancing scars, Geoff will be Kristin's diving partner. He is the kind of Marlboro man with whom any woman would jump out of a plane—or out of the space shuttle.
     I turn to Kristin, who looks relieved. I'm tempted to ask what Alec Baldwin. her well-publicized current beau, would think of GDBI but again hold my tongue. "I'm an actress who likes a strong, communicative director, and Geoff just became my director," she says.

Unfortunately ror Kristin, her ersatz game of Fear Factor is far from over. She has made the mistake of revealing to us her second biggest phobia: snakes. So, a day after plummeting from the sky, we ask her if she would be a sweetie and try draping an enormous, deadly python around her body.
     It would be understandable if she refused. In fact, it would be understandable if she disconnected her phone and took out a restraining order against us. But this is the new, fearless Kristin. She schedules us for the next morning.
     We arrive at a reptile museum that houses more than 3000 reptiles, the largest collection on the East Coast, and meet Mike, the curator, who takes us on a brief, ophidiphobia terror tour: pythons, rattlesnakes, vipers, cobras. Many are five feet long; some clock in at more than 15 feet and weigh up to 160 pounds. All of them, Mike says, are carnivores.
     Oddly enough, Kristin has only one question: "Do you have any water moccasins?" When Mike says no, Kristin appears relieved. Rattlesnakes may be the deadliest, but it seems Kristin has her own reasons for fearing moccasins.
     "When I was growing up in South Carolina and would go swimming in Lake Murray, water moccasinswere every kid's worst fear," she says. "Ewww. I get freaked just thinking about it!" She turns back to Mike. "So these snakes aren't going to be wet, are they? You're not going to make me swim with any right?"
     Mike assures her that she will not be swimming with the snakes and lets her start out with a harmless, five-inch "corn snake." Kristin instantly transforms into a 5-year-old girl, wrinkling her nose and squealing in fright. Time for snake number two.
     At four feet long and only two pounds in weight, the South American Rainbow boa is little more than a super-size corn snake. Of course, the boa is also a member of the constrictor family, so if it had its druthers, it would wrap itself around Kristin's body and squeeze until she could no longer breathe. But at its size, this is merely a pipe dream. Since it's aware that Kristin is too large to kill, Mike says it wouldn't even try.
     Kristin cradles the boa in her hands and it sits contentedly. It still has that creepy, implacable stare that all snakes must practice in the mirror—cold, unblinking, glassy-eyed. But, as Kristin says, "I jumped out of a plane twice on Tuesday. This guy isn't going to shake me."
     Clearly, Mike sees this as a personal challenge. It's time to bring out the Burmese python.
     Two burly assistants delicately lift a 12-foot, 60-pound momster as Mike announces that this is one snake that actually could squeeze Kristin to death—in about 15 minutes, to be exact.
     "But only if he was hungry," Mike assures us. "This snake is quite well fed. If he hadn't eaten, then he could kill you. But there are enough of us here that we would be able to pry him off you."
     What comfort! And with that, Mike drapes the python around Kristin's shoulders, like a mink stole.
     "Whoa! He's a big boy!" she shouts, as the snake settles around her neck and wraps around her legs. "And you can feel his muscles shift. Yeesh! When I try to move in some way he doesn't want to go, he really squeezes back." Yet another statistic flashes into my head: There are 45,000 snakebites in the United states each year. Mike must be reading my mind. He cautions Kristin that the python's head is its most dangerous part.
     "I'm aware of that!" she snaps back, her voice rising an octave as the snake lifts its head up to stare her in the eye. Clearly, she's working hard to keep the snake's head at arm's length while remaining calm. Since snakes can sense fear through a body's heart rate, Kristin's role here is to act like she's enjoying being squeezed by a cold-blooded reptile.
     Finally, after about 15 minutes of bonding—or torture, depending on your point of view—the snake is pried from her shoulders. Kristin has won her own personal game of Fear Factor. As we leave, I remind her that on the show, she would have earned $50,000 for facing her fears. She is, of course, receiving nothing from us—except perhaps an ulcer.
     "That's all right," she says, stepping into the car. "To tell you the truth, now that all of this is over, it was actually kind of cool. Icky and scary and creepy, but cool. Then again, I'm not about to go out and buy a snake for a pet. I mean, I may have faced a few fears," she says with her endearing trademark smirk "but I'm not insane."