After some cast and crew of Sex and the City recently opened up about spats between Kim Cattrall, Chris Noth is now weighing in with his thoughts.
In an interview with The Guardian published Monday, the actor said he felt “protective” over co-star Sarah Jessica Parker following Cattrall’s comments. Following the death of Cattrall’s brother in 2018, Parker reached out on social media with messages of sympathy, however, Cattrall replied on social media and argued that her former SATC castmate was only doing so as a tactic to maintain a “nice girl persona.”
“Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now,” Cattrall wrote in an Instagram post to Parker at the time. “Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.”
Addressing her comments, Noth called the exchange “sad and uncomfortable.”
“I have to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what her thinking is, or her emotions,” Noth told The Guardian. “I do know that I’m very close with SJ and [Cattrall’s] descriptions of her don’t even come close. I liked her, I thought she was marvellous in the show and some people move on for their own reasons. I don’t know what hers were. I just wish that whole thing had never happened because it was sad and uncomfortable.”
He added, “I just don’t like to see anyone talking down about SJ because she’s a target and people can be nasty. I feel very protective of her and I was not happy about that. That’s all I’ll say about that.”
While speaking on James Andrew Miller’s Origins podcast, Parker said of Cattrall, “I’m not in a catfight with anybody. I’ve never publicly — ever — said anything unfriendly, unappreciative about Kim because that’s not how I feel about her.”
Cattrall’s character will not be featured in HBO Max’s upcoming SATC revival And Just Like That… — the actress famously turned down all overtures to appear in a third SATC movie — with showrunner Michael Patrick King telling The Hollywood Reporter that the revival was never going to feature all four women: “It never was on the radar as four because Kim Cattrall, for whatever reason, didn’t want to play Samantha anymore while we were doing the [third] movie. I never thought, ‘Oh, there’s a hole I have to fill.’ Samantha doesn’t not exist in their lives. The show was born of these three characters: What’s their life, and who can I bring in to inform it?”
The revival is set to follow Parker’s Carrie, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) as they navigate friendship in their 50s. When speaking about returning for the revival, Noth explained that he was initially hesitant and a conversation with King helped convince him. “It was a long conversation, it continued through the pandemic and he took in a lot of my ideas and we came up with a way for me to work into it,” Noth said, also admitting that though the films “did pretty well,” he was “a little uncomfortable” with “how the issues between Carrie and Big were resolved” in the second SATC film. He also admitted that he only “saw the movies once at the premieres and that was it.”
In addition to Noth, Parker, Nixon and Davis returning, the late Willie Garson is also to be featured in the revival. Garson passed away in September at age 57 from pancreatic cancer, an illness, Noth says, most were unaware of.
“No, most of us didn’t know,” the actor said. “The last time I saw him was on set and I kick myself because I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him. He was extraordinarily fun and funny and there’s nothing to say but that it’s heartbreaking,” he said.
Noth also teased that Garson was expected to have a prominent storyline. “It’s sad for everyone, and for the show, because I think he was going to have a really huge storyline. But he’ll be in it to the extent that he filmed.”
And Just Like That… premieres Dec. 9 on HBO Max.
