The star previously said “enough was enough.”
Kim Cattrall, who played the iconic sex-positive publicist Samantha Jones on Sex and the City (and the show’s two movie sequels), was famously absent from the first season of the show’s reboot And Just Like That. But per The New York Post, Cattrall has filmed a top-secret scene for the second season.
The filming was reportedly so hush-hush that Cattrall’s name was left off the call sheet, so that no one working on the show would be alerted to her return in advance. Apparently, she didn’t have any contact with the main cast — or showrunner Michael Patrick King.
An insider reportedly told The Post that staffers were “definitely shocked,… and very excited,” adding: “She said she’d never do it! She said she’d never come back!”
Booted out of the story
Cattrall famously turned down a script for a potential third SATC movie in 2017, making it clear that she was done with the character — and her former colleagues — once and for all. “The common ground that we had was the series and the series is over,” Cattrall told Piers Morgan in October 2017. “Sarah Jessica, she could have been nicer, she could have in some way. I don’t know what her issue is, I never have.”
Cattrall’s character was unceremoniously (and entirely off-screen) sent away to begin a new life in London at the beginning of season one of AJLT, leaving Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie, Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda and Kristin Davis’ Charlotte behind. Carrie and Samantha’s friendship was dissolved in an off-screen subplot.
“It’s odd, isn’t it? I don’t know how to feel about it,” Cattrall reportedly said of Samantha’s departure. “It’s so finite for me, so it doesn’t continue. This feels like an echo of the past.”
Cattrall hasn’t spoken publicly about SATC since the reboot started. Speaking to Variety about why she didn’t sign up for AJLT, she said: “It’s a great wisdom to know when enough is enough. I also didn’t want to compromise what the show was to me. The way forward seemed clear.”
Long-running animosity
Her absence from AJLT was no surprise to everyone who’s followed the alleged feud between Cattrall and her former castmates — particularly Sarah Jessica Parker, who Cattrall has publicly slammed as “not my friend.”
The New York Post has previously reported that according to a 2008 book proposal shopped by Clifford Streit, the real-life inspo for SATC’s character Stanford Blatch, relationships on the SATC set became strained because Cattrall, naturally hilarious and charismatic, repeatedly stole the show.
She was “a natural comedienne, and a scene-stealer in the best possible sense — the camera went right to her.”
Parker and Nixon already knew each other from their early careers on Broadway, and they soon welcomed Davis into the fold, apparently leaving Cattrall out on her own. According to Page Six, SJP once rented a house for herself, Nixon, and Davis for a shoot in Atlantic City, NJ, leaving Cattrall out.
Per The Telegraph, tensions also arose after SJP was bumped to executive producer, a title which earned her a cool $300,000 per episode. Apparently, Cattrall’s attempts to negotiate her own raise were poorly received by her classmates, and she was notably seated separately from them at the 2004 Emmy Awards.
Though Cattrall and Parker downplayed any suggestion of a feud for years, eventually, the situation appeared to boil over in public. Cattrall was seriously upset when Parker reached out on social media following the 2018 death of Cattrall’s brother.
“I don’t need your love or support at this tragic time @sarahjessicaparker,” Cattrall shot back.
“Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.”
