Kristin Davis sheds her “Sex in the City” sassiness for a more down-to-earth character in her first major film since the end of the show. In “The Shaggy Dog,” Davis plays Rebecca Douglas, a mother of two and wife to a husband (Tim Allen) that rarely has any time to spend with his family. After an accident with a dog being studied by a mad scientist (Robert Downey Jr.), Dave Douglas finds his life “going to the dogs” as he wrestles to find a new perspective to life through the eyes of a canine.

Below, Kristin talks about the Disney remake as well as life after “Sex in the City.”

Q: Was acting with the kids or the dog the most fun part?

KRISTIN: Hmmm, I'm going to get myself in trouble. (laughs) They're all good. I enjoyed it.

Q: But the dog must've been fun…

KRISTIN: Cole is amazing. He's quite impressive. I'm a dog-lover fanatic, so that was fun for me. And Zena (Grey) and Spencer (Breslin), typically they're children but they're really mature. So it wasn't the cliché of working with children, do you know what I mean? They were beyond their years.

Q: So did you grow up watching the classic Disney films? Did you ever think you were going to be in one?

KRISTIN: Never, never did I think I would be in a Disney movie. No. But I've never seen “The Shaggy Dog.” It was before my time I believe. I'd seen “Lady and the Tramp,” “Bambi,” those types. So I never thought I'd be in one of those. I was shocked when they offered me this movie. I think it was the first part that I had gotten after the show. It was really not what I was expecting to happen.

Q: You have a lot of one-on-one scenes with the dog so was it weird to put yourself in that frame of mind of having to communicate with an animal?

KRISTIN: Well, I am a dog lover as I said, and a dog owner, and I talk to my dog ALL the time. Maybe not exactly like the way in the movie (laughs). There's maybe a little more in the movie but it wasn't hard. It is a different acting experience, definitely. I've had a relationship with my dog since she was a baby. But with Cole, you're also working with Ray and Mark, his trainers, because that's how you do it. Cole of course he is a dog so he has to rehearse. So it's more an adjustment of working with extra people who aren't in the scene. So it's more a technical adjustment.

Q: So with your own dog, you wouldn't talk about your relationships or anything like that?

KRISTIN: I might. But not in that way. I'd be like, “Can you believe that jerk?” (laughs) I'd be more like that.

But the sweet thing that I love about the whole idea of “The Shaggy Dog” is that he (Tim Allen) learns to be a better human by being a dog and I do think that's kind of relevant because we can learn a lot from dogs and watching dogs. We can't become them but if you could, I bet you would be a better human and I bet you'd be a better father, spouse. Dogs are very, very pleasant with people that they're connected to.

Q: This movie is opening opposite Sarah Jessica Parker's “Failure to Launch”?

KRISTIN: The exact same day!

Q: Do you and her have a wager as to which movie will do better?

KRISTIN: We don't care. I love her so movie grosses do not infringe on that. We joked about it. “Failure to Launch” was going to [open] in February I think. We e-mail a lot and she was going to come to L.A. and I was going to see her and she said, “I'm not coming. They moved to junket,” and I was like, “Why did they move the junket? Why did they move the junket,” and she goes, “They moved the release date March,” and I go, “What do you mean they moved the release date to March? March what?” and she like, “March 10 th ,” and I was like, “MARCH 10 TH ?!” That's business, it's not personal.

Q: How do you think “Sex in the City” has changed your career? Sarah was talking about that when she was here in NYC for “Failure to Launch”.

KRISTIN: Well obviously, it's very different for me because I am not as well-known as her. Before I did the show, I was on “ Melrose Place ” where I played an unlikable person. So it was good for me to play a likable person and it was just an amazing situation to be in. We never thought that we would have the success that we had in a million years. Never, never. I remember we did the whole first season before it was even on the air and we were really concerned that people were going to freak out and hate us. We were really worried that men were going to hate us, and that feminists were going to hate us, especially at the beginning because we talked a lot about men. We were like, “They're going to be mad. What are we going to do?” We were very, very worried. We had no idea that it would be embraced as much as it was. We still can't believe it, frankly.

Q: Why do you think the show was so successful?

KRISTIN: Not to offend anyone who writes for TV, but I think it was different and I don't see anything on TV like it. I didn't see anything like it on TV before, and I don't see anything like it on TV after. Also, it was a cultural moment that wasn't being represented in terms of women who were successful and had choices they didn't have before. They needed a show that they can watch that they felt like represented them. The thing that I feel sad about now is that there's nothing out there like that now. There's “Desperate Housewives,” and it's a great show with all women. But where's the show about the single woman who wants to have babies, and raise babies on their own, and whether to get married or not get married? That's why we were on the cover of TIME. We weren't on the cover of TIME because we had good writing. We were on the cover of TIME because it was a cultural phenomenon.

"The Shaggy Dog" opens in theaters today.