Kim Cattrall may be returning to the Sex and the City universe once again, but her return will be a solo one. The actress, who has long been open with her negative feelings surrounding her former co-stars, was confirmed to be reprising her iconic role as Samantha Jones in the Season 2 finale of And Just Like That, Max’s Sex and the City revival.
Cattrall’s scene as Samantha — which won’t air until August following the June 22 And Just Like That Season 2 premiere — was filmed without the actress having to see or speak to the stars of the series, including Sarah Jessica Parker and showrunner Michael Patrick King, reported Variety, which first broke the news of Cattrall’s return. In the scene, shot back in March in New York City, a London-based Samantha will have a phone conversation with Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw, having previously texted one another plans to reconcile in the first season of the revival.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Cattrall’s return comes as a surprise, being that the actress publicly announced in 2016 that she was done playing Samantha, as she thought the script for a proposed third Sex and the City film was not doing justice to her character. Cattrall then began speaking out against Parker, claiming that she had been horrible to her during the original Sex and the City run and that the two had never really been friends – a claim she would repeat toward other co-stars, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon.
When King and Parker returned to the Sex and the City world in And Just Like That in 2021, Cattrall wasn’t approached to play Samantha. “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,” Parker told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022. That same year, both Parker and King publicly said they didn’t see a scenario in which Cattrall would return as Samantha, but Variety reports that as filming for Season 2 was underway, Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, approached Cattrall about reprising her role, which led to her decision to shoot the one scene.
