In an interview with the Variety site, the British actress returned to the reasons that led her to leave the “Sex and the City” franchise, after six seasons and two feature films spent in the role of the extravagant Samantha .
Launched in 2021 on HBO Max, the series And Just Like That… is the direct sequel to the adventures of the group of New York friends from Sex and the City, a cult series by Darren Star broadcast from 1998 to 2004 and ended with two feature films released in 2008 and 2010.
But if Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) have all answered present for this new batch of episodes more than ten years later, the last member of the iconic quartet of girlfriends who shared together their love joys and disappointments was conspicuous by his absence during this meeting.
Kim Cattrall, who played the hilarious Samantha, an uninhibited businesswoman with a very active sex life, did not in fact wish to be part of the game, much to the disappointment of fans. The showrunner of And Just Like That…, Michael Patrick King, therefore chose to justify his absence from the series by explaining through the dialogues between Carrie and her friends that Samantha had gone to live in London, and that both of them were disputed after Carrie stopped paying her friend, who was her publicist.
A screenplay choice that surprised the British actress to say the least. Interviewed by the site Variety about her refusal to participate in the sequel to Sex and the City, Kim Cattrall reveals that she did not watch And Just Like That…, and declares that she has definitely turned the page, to the point that the production of the series did not even approach her to offer her to be part of the cast.
“I was never offered to participate in the reboot. I was very clear about my desires after [que] the possibility of making a third film [a été évoquée]therefore I learned that there was going to be a reboot like everyone else: via social networks.”
“Can you imagine going back to a job you were doing twenty-five years ago?” she continues. “And this job hasn’t gotten any easier; it became more complicated to successfully advance these characters. Everything must evolve, otherwise it’s over. When the series ended, I thought it was clever. We weren’t repeating ourselves. And then the film came to settle the last questions left unanswered. And then there was another movie. And then another movie? (…) My whole being told me: ‘enough is enough’.“
On this subject, the actress reveals that the scenario of the third Sex and the City film which never saw the light of day essentially contained the structure of the reboot: the death of Big and the mourning process crossed by Carrie. “The series is the third film, roughly. This is the level of creativity that was offered.“
Furthermore, in this scenario, the main event that Samantha had to experience was to receive a dick pick unsolicited from… Brady, Miranda’s teenage son. “It’s heartbreaking“, she reacts.”Why wouldn’t Samantha, who owns her own public relations agency, have been forced to sell it due to financial problems? 2008 was a tough year (referring to the financial crisis in the United States, editor’s note). Some people haven’t fully recovered yet.”
“Maybe she would have been forced to sell her company to a guy in a hoodie (…) It was a scenario that one of my representatives had in mind, and I thought it was a Brilliant idea. That’s a conflict! Instead of an underage boy who…” she interrupts herself.
It will be understood, despite the recent announcement of the renewal of And Just Like That … for a season 2, the actress is not about to re-enlist in the role of Samantha, yet very popular with fans. “I came to the conclusion that the best compliment I could receive as an actress is to miss the public” she slips not without malice.