On her own terms. Cynthia Nixon initially wasn’t sure whether she would join her former costars in the Sex and the City revival, And Just Like That.
“I really didn’t think I was going to do it, I was very reluctant,” Nixon, 55, told News Corp’s Herald Sun on Tuesday, December 28. “But the more I talked to Sarah Jessica [Parker], [creator] Michael Patrick King and Kristin [Davis], about the things that I couldn’t go back without — a real sea change in terms of the lack of diversity in the original series — they were on board.”
And Just Like That explores the lives of Carrie Bradshaw (Parker), Charlotte York (Davis) and Miranda Hobbes (Nixon) as the women embrace life and friendship in their 50s. The original series aired on HBO from 1998 to 2004, and featured Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones, but the actress didn’t reprise her role in the new installment.
Nixon, however, was “floored by how hard everybody listened” when it came to collaborating on a fresh approach to the story, which eventually changed her mind about joining the HBO Max series. “We worked together to not just redecorate the house but to build a whole new house, one that had us in it but new characters, too,” she said on Tuesday.
The Emmy winner also praised And Just Like That for not shying away from the topic of aging, adding, “The characters are 55 so they’re in menopause. And menopause is the punch line to a lot of jokes and certainly has its unpleasant aspects. But it’s a time when women have spent decades looking after other people and can again focus on themselves: ‘Who am I? Who do I want to be?'”
Nixon’s insight on the series comes after Parker, 56, called out critics for judging how her appearance has changed over the years.
“Especially on social media. Everyone has something to say. ‘She has too many wrinkles, she doesn’t have enough wrinkles,’” the Hocus Pocus star explained during an interview with Vogue in November. “It almost feels as if people don’t want us to be perfectly OK with where we are, as if they almost enjoy us being pained by who we are today, whether we choose to age naturally and not look perfect, or whether you do something if that makes you feel better.
At the time, Davis, 56, weighed in on the “level of intensity” of the criticism she and her costars experience, telling The Sunday Times Style Magazine, “Everyone wants to comment, pro or nay or whatever, on our hair and our faces and our this and our that.”
The Colorado native found herself feeling “angry all the time” after seeing negative comments online, adding, “I don’t look at it, I just know it’s there.”
Nixon explained on Tuesday that while she is “grateful” for Sex and the City, the show is now viewed as “tone deaf on race and gender.” Davis, for her part, recently addressed how “important” it was for the cast and the writers to get those conversations right in the revival.
“I felt that if we have this opportunity that we should take it, and we do. It’s been a joy, and our new writers and our new actors have just been mind-bogglingly brilliant and wonderful, and they have so many ideas,” the Golden Globe nominee shared with Entertainment Weekly earlier this month. “We stressed about it because we wanted to be good, and we wanted to be real. Charlotte really means well, as we know, but she’s not perfect by any means.”
And Just Like That drops new episodes on HBO Max every Thursday.
