With only a few days to go before the Season 2 premiere of And Just Like That, Sarah Jessica Parker has weighed in on Kim Cattrall’s highly anticipated cameo.
As I’m sure you know, the first season of the Sex and the City revival went ahead in 2021 with only three members of its original foursome, following Kim’s decade-spanning dispute with her costars — specifically SJP.
Whispers of a feud between the SATC cast go back to the ’90s, when the show first aired on HBO, with reports claiming that the rift was initially sparked over pay disparities.
Despite all this, the actors remained cordial while shooting all six seasons of the show and the two subsequent movies, often denying rumors of a behind-the-scenes rift.
Over the years, Kim has publicly blasted SJP more than once, perhaps most memorably in a scathing Instagram caption in 2018, when she accused the actor of “exploiting” her brother’s sudden death to “restore” her “‘nice girl’ persona.”
Meanwhile, SJP continually denied claims of a “catfight,” saying that she’d “never uttered an unkind, unsupportive, unfriendly word.”
Needless to say, it came as no surprise to hear that Kim wasn’t even asked to reprise her role in And Just Like That, with SJP later stating that there was simply “too much public history” for her to be OK with Kim ever returning.
Kim didn’t directly comment on the revival while it was airing, although she did express that she was happy not to be involved in it, telling Variety last year that it’d be a “definite no” if she were ever asked to reprise her role.
Which is exactly why fans were so shocked last month when it was announced that Kim would be coming back for a cameo in the Season 2 finale later this summer.
So far, all we know about the highly anticipated return is that Kim apparently filmed her scene March 22, doing so “without seeing or speaking with the stars of the series,” including SJP, or Michael Patrick King, the show’s creator.
It’s also been reported that the scene takes place in a car, where Samantha has a phone conversation with — you guessed it — Carrie Bradshaw, played by SJP.
For the most part, the AJLT cast haven’t said too much about Kim’s return. However, with the Season 2 premiere right around the corner, the star of the show recently broke her silence on the matter.
While it’s unclear whether SJP has watched the cameo ahead of the launch, she said this week that the return of Kim’s character brought back a lot of emotions for the cast and crew.
“We’ve been really thoughtful about the ways in which we’ve, you know, approached characters that hadn’t been around, the ways we have invited actors back, and it’s been, you know, really fun and exciting and certainly nostalgic,” she told the Daily Mail. “But I think, more than that, it’s been a lot of joy.”
At the same time, Kristin Davis — who plays Charlotte — chipped in to make it clear that Kim’s cameo doesn't necessarily provide them with “closure” or a “resolution.”
“Those are, like, kind of big things that I don’t know that we were going for,” she said. “We just thought that, you know, it would be fun for the fans to have a little bit of Samantha because we know that they miss her and she’s a great character.”
There's obviously been a lot of chatter about the extent of the cameo, with many fans expecting that Samantha’s return may be limited to a matter of minutes onscreen. In light of this, Kristin was keen to manage viewers’ expectations, saying she hopes “people aren’t disappointed.”
“I think we just thought, you know, here is, you know, our character who’s been gone,” Kristin said. “And we know people miss her and Carrie misses her … and wouldn’t this be great to have a little bit of her, you know. That’s what we wanted.”
The third member of the remaining trio, Cynthia Nixon — who plays Miranda — briefly addressed the cameo during an interview with Vanity Fair last week.
“I read it in the script,” she told the outlet before clarifying that she hasn’t watched any of the episodes in full.
