Kim Cattrall Finally Speaks on Why She Wasn’t in ‘And Just Like That”

The Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That, was pure nostalgia, and for all its faults (which are mostly Miranda-based, in my opinion), it was a guilty pleasure of a show for most of us. But in spite of the joy it sparked over the course of its ten episodes, the absence of Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall, was glaring.

Samantha’s absence on the show was handled delicately enough: a falling out with Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), and an eventual move from New York to London explained why Samantha was no longer a part of the foursome on the show, and publicly, Cattrall had said that she no longer had plans to portray Jones after the 2010 film Sex and the City 2, saying she would not be in a third movie if there was one.

In an interview with Variety, the first that Cattrall has given since And Just Like That premiered, she finally explains why she is not a part of the new show. “I was never asked to be part of the reboot. I made my feelings clear after the possible third movie, so I found out about it like everyone else did — on social media.”

Cattrall says that she withdrew herself from the possible third film after reading a script in which her character receives illicit photos from Brady Hobbs, Miranda’s teenage son, a plot point she disliked. Of that proposed story line, she says, “It’s heartbreaking.” She explains that it was hard to walk away but it felt right for her. “As difficult as it was, and as scary as it is to stand up and not be bullied by the press or the fans or whomever — to just say, I’m good. I’m on this track. It was so great working with you. I so enjoyed it, but I’m over here,” she says.

“I haven’t deserted anybody,” she says, defending her choice to leave Samantha behind. “Can you imagine going back to a job you did 25 years ago? And the job didn’t get easier; it got more complicated in the sense of how are you going to progress with these characters? Everything has to grow, or it dies. I felt that when the series ended, I thought that’s smart. We’re not repeating ourselves. And then the movie to end all the loose ends. And then there’s another movie. And then there’s another movie?… Everything in me went, ‘I’m done.'”

Cattrall admits that she has not watched the new show, but from what she has heard of the plot points surrounding her departure, she says, “That feels different than the Samantha that I played.”

And, to fans like me who can sense Samantha Jones’s absence from the show? Cattrall says, “I’ve come to the conclusion that really the greatest compliment I could have as an actor is to be missed.”