And Just Like That was Sex and the City’s attempt to rebrand itself for modern audiences, and according to one of its leading actresses, the show handled it perfectly. In an interview with The New York Times (via Variety), Cynthia Nixon (A Quiet Passion, The Only Living Boy in New York), who played Miranda Hobbes across both seasons, says she “loved” the show’s attempt to make Miranda “woke”.
In the interview, the actress notes that fans were not entirely receptive to the character’s turn towards social awareness, saying that viewers “were so horrified by [Miranda’s] sadness and alcoholism and awkwardness at trying to become a woke person at this advanced age,” but that she “loved that” about the character’s development.
Most controversially, Miranda hooked up with Che Diaz, portrayed by Sara Ramirez (You’ve Got Mail, Grey’s Anatomy), in season 1 of And Just Like That, and dumped Steve Brady, portrayed by David Eigenberg (The Mothman Prophecies, The Trouble With Romance). The character of Steve Brady had been a long-term mainstay of the franchise, first appearing in season 2 of Sex and the City. In Sex and the City, the characters met, fell in love, broke up, got back together, got married, and welcomed a son into the world — Brady Hobbes, played in Sex and the City by Joseph Pupo (Sex and the City: The Movie, Sex and the City 2) and in And Just Like That by Niall Cunningham (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Poker Face). Meanwhile, the character of Che Diaz was not received well by audiences.
Nixon says that she was excited to rectify some of Sex and the City’s representational failures. “I became convinced that we could really do interesting, dangerous things,” Nixon said. “And that we could make up for some of our past mistakes, the chief one being that it was such an overwhelmingly white show.” Additionally, she was caught off-guard when it was announced that And Just Like That would not be coming back for a fourth season: “I was not at all ready,” Nixon said. “Not at all.”
Nixon currently stars in HBO’s The Gilded Age as Ada Forte. The series recently aired its fourth season premiere, which can be streamed on HBO Max.
