Kim Cattrall's 'And Just Like That' Return Isn't The 'Sex And The City' Reunion You Think It Is
Kim Cattrall may be returning to the Sex And The City(SATC) franchise, but don't get your hopes up too high.
Cattrall's sexually liberated and ambitious portrayal of Samantha Jones has reigned iconic since the original series debut in 1998, but her return to Season 2 of the reboot And Just Like That… (AJLT) may not be the triumphant splash fans have patiently waited for.
Samantha Jones, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) may have been a tight-knit friend group living fabulous and often single lives in New York, but that doesn't mean the actresses who play them are just as close.
Cattrall and Parker have reportedly been in a decades-long feud with bad blood running all the way back to the show's HBO run and the following two movies, with pay discrepancies and alleged tension on set as major points of contention.
Despite the pair's troubled history, 66-year-old Cattrall is set to make a comeback on the AJLT season 2 finale, where her character will talk to Carrie Bradshaw over the phone, according to People.
But fans won't be getting a full-blown return over brunch with all of the SATC co-stars in the same shot together – let alone at the same breakfast table talking about "colouring."
Variety reports that Cattrall shot her one scene in New York on March 22 and didn't see or speak to any of her former co-stars or the AJLT showrunner Michael Patrick King.
She was reportedly styled by SATC costume designer Patricia Field for her scene, so at least fans can expect Jones to be looking fierce for her revival.
For many fans, seeing Cattrall's return to AJLT,even for a cameo, comes as a shock, given that she previously told Variety that she hadn't even watched the reboot and that she walked away from the franchise because "It's a great wisdom to know when enough is enough."
Why was Samantha not part of And Just Like That Season 1?
Parker has spoken about Cattrall's return ahead of the season 2 premiere and called it "really fun and exciting and certainly nostalgic," according to Daily Mail.
Parker said it's "been a lot of joy."
While speaking with AP Entertainment, Parker revealed the idea for Samantha to come back came from her and AJLT's creator Michael Patrick King.
"We just thought it was like a really nice way of acknowledging the 25 years of the show, and you know, Samantha has been present in this show. She's been texting with Carrie, and so this is the same, except now we get to see her face," said Parker. "It's a brief little cameo, and it was lovely and fun, and I think it's really nice for the audience who feels such affection as we do for Samantha."
This is a stark difference from her previous statement in 2022 when Parker told Variety she wouldn't be okay with Cattrall returning for the reboot.
"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," Parker said. "I haven't participated in or read articles, although people are inclined to let me know."
King told People that he doesn't know what changed Cattrall's mind about joining AJLT but that she's always been in his mind while writing the show.
"I don't know what happened because we didn't start the season thinking this,” said King. "Some sort of universal magic shifted. I don't know whether the fans manifested this. I don't know what happened. Maybe something about the 25th anniversary brought a lot of energy forward, and all of a sudden, Kim was like, ‘All right, I'll make a stop by.'"
Davis told the Daily Mail that she hopes people aren't disappointed by Cattrall's return.
"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," said Davis.
"I don't know that we're even trying for closure at this point, or resolution. I think we just thought, you know, here is, you know, our character who's been gone. 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. And then I think maybe hopes have been lifted, possibly higher than that, and that was not our intention. So I hope people aren't disappointed."
Nixon recently spoke to Vanity Fair about doing the show without Cattrall and how the dynamic of the show changed without Samantha Jones.
"Yes, it did feel very different. It felt very different also because we have these new amazing characters, and we're older, and our fictional children are now largely grown. Many things felt different. But the main thing that felt so great was that everybody who was there really wanted to be there," she said.
"That's just the bottom line. We all love each other, we love our show, we wanted to do more of it. And we all wanted to be there. So that makes an enormous difference, that you're not walking around on eggshells with someone who's unhappy for reasons that are hard to even understand what they are."
Parker and Cattrall denied that there was any feud between them for years, but eventually, the rumours started to hold some merit.
What was the issue between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall?
In 2004, when SATC had just ended, Cattrall didn't sit with her co-stars at the Emmys, according to Cosmopolitan. That fuelled rumours of a rift, but both Cattrall and Parker denied they had any issues with each other for years.
To understand the Parker and Cattrall feud, you have to understand that not everyone on SATC was making the same kind of money, which may have caused some tension.
Despite Samantha Jones being a fan-favourite character, Cattrall reportedly made $350,000 per episode during SATC's golden era, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Meanwhile, Parker was reportedly bringing home $3.2 million per episode through seasons four to six once she became a producer, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
SATC ran on HBO from 1998 to 2004, and Cattrall wanted to be compensated more fairly, according to an interview on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, where she disclosed that salary increases for the cast prevented a seventh season and the first movie from initially moving forward.
"I felt after six years it was time for all of us to participate in the financial windfall of Sex And The City," she said. "When they didn't seem keen on that, I thought it was time to move on."
Cattrall did say, "If the deal was right and the script was fabulous," she would do a movie.
It looks like the showrunners were able to land a deal four years later after some negotiations but pay discrepancies still continued throughout the franchise's two films, Sex And The City and Sex And The City 2, according to Cosmopolitan.
Parker was reportedly paid $15 million for the first film and $20 million for the second, while Cattrall got $7 million for the first film and $10 million for the second installment, per Cosmopolitan.
In an interview with Marie Claire, Cattrall addressed the rumours that she was holding up the movie and shared that she had been dealing with a public divorce and her father being diagnosed with dementia.
Parker also defended Cattrall in an interview with The Telegraph in 2008 and said, "Honestly, we are all friends, and I wish I saw more of Kim."
"She mentioned money, and no one should vilify her for it. People made a decision that we had vilified her. No one bothered to say [to the rest of us], 'Are you disappointed by not making the movie?' Yes. 'Do you respect and support her choice to not do it?' Absolutely."
When did Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall go public with their feud?
Parker and Kim Cattrall continued to deny any rumours of bad blood between them from 2009 to 2010, with Parker speaking out against the rumours to Elle in 2009 and Cattrall confirming that she and Parker were on good terms to the Daily Mail in 2010.
But the first crack started to show in an interview with Marie Claire ahead of the second film's release in 2010 when Parker admitted that some feelings do get hurt on set.
"When you're on set, you're working 90-hour weeks, you're never home, you're exhausted," she said. "There are times when all of us have been sensitive, and sometimes feelings get hurt. But I don't have any regrets about how I've treated people."
In 2016, Parker even wished Cattrall a happy birthday on Instagram, calling her a "sister."
Parker continued to dispute rumours of a feud between her and Cattrall, and both stars kept suggesting that the press couldn't handle two successful women getting along.
But things changed after any hope of a third SATC movie was shot down in 2017, with Parker telling Extra TV that the project was "over."
"I'm disappointed. We had this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script and story. It's not just disappointing that we don't get to tell the story and have that experience, but more so for that audience that has been so vocal in wanting another movie."
The blame was put on Cattrall for being too demanding in negotiations. Cattrall responded to the rumours in a tweet and said the only "DEMAND" she ever made was that she didn't want to do a third film.
In October 2017, Cattrall did an interview with Piers Morgan where she said that she thought Parker could have been nicer to her.
Cattrall said she and the girls had never been friends, but they've made it work as co-workers.
"We've been colleagues, and in some ways, it's a very healthy place to be because then you have a clear line between your professional life and relationship and your personal. To get any kind of negative press about something that I've been saying for almost a year of 'No' that I'm demanding or a diva. And this is really where I take to task the people from Sex And The City and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker, is that I think she could have been nicer."
"I really think she could have been nicer," Cattrall continued. "I don't know what her issue is. I think the thing that still bothers me is this feeling of being in some way made to be the baddie."
Months later, in 2018, Parker told Andy Cohen that she was "heartbroken" over Cattrall's interview and that she didn't see their relationship in the same light.
"I found it very upsetting because that's, you know, that's not the way I recall our experience. So it's sad, but I'm kind of, I don't know. I always think that what ties us together is this singular experience. It was a professional experience, but it became personal because it was years and years of our lives."
Shortly after Parker's interview with Cohen, Cattrall made an Instagram post publicly shaming Parker for reaching out after her brother died, writing, "I don't need your love or support at this tragic time."
"Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now." She adds, "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," Cattrall wrote in an Instagram caption along with a link to a 2017 New York Post article detailing the "mean girl culture that destroyed Sex And The City."
So at this point, it was pretty clear to fans that Cattrall and Parker were no longer on good terms, but Parker continued to deny that there had ever been issues.
Parker continued to speak out publicly in 2018, insisting that there was no issue in interviews with People and Vulture.
Fast forward a few years, and in 2021, AJLT premiered, and surprise, surprise, Samantha Jones had been written out of the show as living in London and no longer speaking to Carrie or the girls after Carrie let her go as her publicist.
Is Kim Cattrall in And Just Like That Season 2?
HBO CEO Casey Bloys told TVLine that the new series would focus on women in their 50s, and just like real life, you're not always still friends with people that you loved in your 30s.
In 2022, Parker acknowledged that Cattrall was a "huge contributor" to the success of the show but that they felt comfortable moving on without her since she had made her stance on ever returning as Samantha clear, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“We did not ask her to be part of this because she made it clear that that wasn’t something she wanted to pursue, and it no longer felt comfortable for us, and so it didn’t occur to us," said Parker.
"That’s not ‘slamming’ her, it’s just learning. You’ve got to listen to somebody, and if they’re publicly talking about something and it doesn’t suggest it’s someplace they want to be, or a person they want to play, or an environment in which they want to be, you get to an age where you’re like, ‘Well, we hear that.'"
But at the end of Season 1, fans were given a glimmer of hope of seeing Samantha again during a text exchange between her and Carrie where they decided to meet for a cocktail in Paris.
This leads us to season 2's cameo phone call with Samantha Jones, which against all odds, has come to fruition – but just because the four core girls are back doesn't mean fans can expect the original SATC magic.
You can catch the first episode of AJLT Season 2 on June 22, 2023, on MAX.
