“Sex and the City” star Kim Cattrall is set to reprise her role as Samantha Jones in Max’s “And Just Like That” Season 2, TheWrap has confirmed.
Cattrall’s appearance comes as a surprise to many after the actress, who played the bold and audacious Samantha in the HBO series and in the two “Sex and the City” feature films, bowed out of the franchise before a proposed third movie and the sequel series. She was nominated for five Emmy Awards for her work across seasons.
Samantha’s absence was explained in the first episode of the Max series, which established that she left the foursome after Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) fired her as her publicist and Samantha moved to London. Her history was still acknowledged periodically during Season 1 of “And Just Like That.” After Carrie told the story of Samantha removing her diaphragm on the “X, Y and Me” podcast, she texted her former ride or die to make sure it was OK. Samantha also sent flowers to Big’s (Chris North) funeral as a gesture to Carrie and the season ended with Carrie texting Samantha after scattering Big’s ashes in the Seine River and later saying they should meet in London.
According to showrunner Michael Patrick King, that meeting hypothetically happened offscreen. He described it as, “once Carrie let go of an old, old love, one of her current loves came back in.” But even though King made sure to incorporate Cattrall as much as possible through text, he has said “there was no thought that Kim would ever participate in ‘And Just Like That,’ because she’s said what she had said.”
Cattrall’s complicated history with “Sex and the City” and its various reboots has been well documented. An early draft of the third “Sex and the City” movie involved Samantha getting unsolicited nudes from Miranda’s (Cynthia Nixon) 14-year-old son, Brady. Cattrall was vocally opposed to the plot line and made it clear that she did not want to be part of the project that would eventually become “And Just Like That.”
“I was never asked to be part of the reboot. I made my feelings clear after the possible third movie, so I found out about it like everyone else did — on social media,” Cattrall told Variety in 2022.
In that same interview, Cattrall said that she would “never” go back to playing Samantha Jones. “Can you imagine going back to a job you did 25 years ago?” Cattrall said.
This tension hasn’t been one sided. When asked if she would be OK with Cattrall returning for “And Just Like That,” Parker said “I don’t think I would, because I think there’s just too much public history of feelings on her part that she’s shared.” She also noted that she hasn’t personally participated in or read articles about what Cattrall has said about the spinoff but people have “let me know.”
At the moment, it’s unclear what has made Cattrall change her mind, what the cameo will look like or what the cast’s response to it will be.
