What’s Sex and the City without Samantha? Well, not Sex and the City, if you ask Gilles Marini. The actor, who starred as Samantha’s sexy neighbor, Dante, in the first film, spoke exclusively with Us Weekly about the drama going on between Kim Cattrall and the rest of the cast.
“Everybody has a reason for their choices. I think there’s one thing that we cannot take away from Kim – the show was phenomenal, and with Kim in it, it became incredible,” Marini told Us at the Pediatric Aids Foundation’s A Time for Heroes 28th Annual Festival on Sunday, October 29.
Cattrall recently appeared on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories and shot down claims that she was “demanding or a diva,” explaining that she didn’t turn down the film due to money, but actually because her heart wasn’t “in it anymore.”
“She did two movies and I think they wanted to do a third one and I guess she decided not to do it. There’s nothing we can force anybody to do, and then she’s so very busy. She has a couple shows she works on,” the 41-year-old actor added. “Everybody wants to see a third one, I get it, and sometimes things don’t work.”
Cattrall also told Morgan that she was shocked at the negativity that came out of her decision. “This is really where I take to task the people from Sex and the City and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker in that I think she could have been nicer,” she said on Oct. 2, before adding that she and the other leading ladies, were had “never been friends,” but instead, “colleagues.”
Only they know what went down between them, Marini said, before admitting he never saw any animosity on set between Cattrall, Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis. “She had a work friendship with them, versus a friendship friendship, and I experience that myself on different shows. You had an incredible time with people on set but they are not your best friends hanging out at the house, so I understand what she said there,” he said.
As for doing a third film without her, Marini’s not sure that’s possible.
“I don’t think you can get rid of Kim Cattrall. Maybe working around Kim Cattrall is possible, [but] it’s all about the studio. Let’s be honest with all these things — if the studio wants to do the movie without Kim, they would be able to do it,” he said. “I get a lot of people are frustrated and upset, but in the end of day it’s a choice that someone wants to make for their life and we have to respect it.”
