Sex and the City fans haven’t missed the key absence in the reboot And Just Like That… in the shape of, of course, Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall. The star has made it very clear she didn’t want to return to the role in any capacity, meaning the original four friends weren’t officially reunited.
In the end, the writers decided to keep Samantha in the show as a firmly off-screen character, explaining that she had moved to London.
Although fans have missed Cattrall’s presence, the cast and crew addressed their positive approach to Samantha’s across the pond storyline in HBO’s And Just Like That… The Documentary, which delves into the behind the scenes of the show.
Creator Michael Patrick King explained that since Cattrall has moved on from the role, he decided to take advantage of the situation. “I realized, ‘Oh, we can have them mirror a split that people already know but make it really Carrie and Samantha and heartfelt the way you lose friends’,” he said.
Carrie star Sarah Jessica Parker added that after her character removed Samantha as her book publicist in the show, Samantha ends up “firing her as a friend” too.
Charlotte actor Kristin Davis added: “There’s a storyline about Samantha that I think is great. I think it’s very true, it seems very true to me that friends sometimes grow apart,” to which Parker noted: “I think it’s handled really nicely and it’s very gently peppered.”
Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda Hobbes, previously opened up about Samantha’s absence on Watch What Happens Live in January, saying: “I have to say I love how we addressed it head-on in the first minute… And I love how, you know, we keep checking in with her from time to time. I love that.”
Cattrall has a frosty history with her co-stars on the show, with rumours of an alleged feud between herself and Park and herself swirling for years.
In fact, Cattrall’s Twitter account even liked a tweet that labelled the show “trashy” in January and praised her for declining to take part.
So it seems just as Samantha has grown distant in the show, the same can probably be said in real life.