Cattrall may be done with “Sex and the City,” but the revival series will keep her in the mix through Carrie’s text messages.
Oh honey, even showrunner Michael Patrick King knows there’s truly no “Sex and the City” without Samantha Jones.
Despite Kim Cattrall announcing she was officially “done” with playing sex-positive icon Samantha, King confirmed Season 2 of the HBO Max revival series “And Just Like That” will still include her character by way of text message.
“Yes!” King told Variety about Samantha and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) continuing their long-distance friendship. Season 1 left off with Carrie meeting Samantha in London for a drink after throwing Mr. Big’s ashes into the Seine.
“It’s very funny, because every single one of the writers has a different version of what happened during that conversation,” King said of Carrie and Samantha’s offscreen meeting. “So, I think there was some champagne. I think there was a grownup back and forth, and a love affair that they realized that something’s more important than being afraid to heal. I’m sure they had a great night. To me, they had a great night and things became resolved. Once Carrie let go of an old, old love, one of her current loves came back in.”
Except not literally back: Cattrall, who played Samantha across the original groundbreaking “Sex and the City” series and two subsequent movies, revealed she was not approached to star in “And Just Like That” after turning down the script for the third film.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that really the greatest compliment I could have as an actor is to be missed,” Cattrall previously said of “AJLT” including her character offscreen, before calling it “odd” that the series relies on Samantha’s presence still. “I don’t know how to feel about it. It’s so finite for me, so it doesn’t continue.”
As King formerly told the outlet, “You can literally not make an actress play a part,” about casting Cattrall again. “Magically thinking, it’s great to have Samantha [but] I have no realistic expectation of Kim Cattrall ever appearing again.”
Lead star Parker confirmed that Cattrall was not asked to be part of the revival series because “she made it clear that that wasn’t something she wanted to pursue, and it no longer felt comfortable for us.”
Parker said of the text message workaround for Samantha sans Cattrall, “We felt comfortable moving on without her and without that part because we knew what Michael wanted to do. And we thought he handled it beautifully — that she was there and she was present — and that was kind of nice for all of us and, I think, the audience.”
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