Cynthia Nixon Returns to Miranda
With her natural blond hair, native New Yorker Cynthia Nixon has a much greater chance of passing through her city unnoticed. But at the end of season one of “And Just Like That,” the now-infamous sequel series to “Sex and the City,” Miranda Hobbes dyed her pandemic grays back to her signature red look, which carried into the second season. That meant any of Nixon’s hopes of slinking by incognito ceased to exist.
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“Once I had the red hair [again], everybody recognized me all the time,” Nixon says.
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It’s early June and once again, Nixon is preparing to release a new season of her most famous character into the world (she’s gone back to blonde post-wrapping the season). On the heels of the 25th anniversary of ”Sex and the City,” which Nixon had just been celebrating earlier in the month, comes the second season of the sequel, the first episode of which is out Thursday.
The hope was always for “And Just Like That” to land with audiences and warrant a second season, and Nixon points to the fact that the original four characters are written as evolved versions in the sequel, not just the same women we knew before, as one of its strengths.
“I always feel like our show had so many strengths, so many reasons that it succeeded and is still so beloved. And one of the things I think is that the writers worked really hard not to repeat themselves in terms of actual scenarios,” Nixon says of “And Just Like That.” “You see other half-hour comedies and you’re like, ‘This is just like previous-season women. A different version of what happened.’ But I think apart from not repeating, they also really let these characters evolve and made sure that the characters were allowed to evolve. It’s really fun to play these characters because they’re allowed to not only age, but they’re allowed to change and grow and evolve and make mistakes and backtrack and try different doors.”
Season one saw Miranda strike up a romance with podcaster Che Diaz, played by Sara Ramirez, and ultimately ask her husband Steve for a divorce, in a storyline that was one of the season’s most discussed.
“I was surprised that Che was such a controversial figure. I understand Miranda’s decision to leave Steve. We always knew that was going to be [difficult]. Even within our own cast and crew…somebody made buttons that said Team Steve and Team Che. Different people would wear them and they would mean it,” Nixon says. “And at one point, we were shooting, and Sara Ramirez went and got a button that said Team Steve. I’m like, ’Oh my God, what?’”
As for what lies ahead for Miranda in the future, Nixon says she’s always relieved it’s not her responsibility to figure that out.
“I guess when one feels so maternal or something towards these characters, one wishes they find peace and contentment. And I wish that on a certain level, but I don’t really wish it for Miranda. You know? Because she’s just not that kind of a person,” Nixon says. “I guess what I wish for her is that she continues to open doors and explore new vistas and gain new skills and try new things. They always say if you’re trying to not lose your memory, try to learn a foreign language in later life, even though it’s very hard, or try learning to walk backwards. And none of those things are pleasant and they’re really not that much fun, probably, either. But I think they’re the things that keep your brain alive. And that’s what I wish for Miranda, that her body and brain and heart really stay alive. Because I think what we saw in the first season, when she finally breaks out and first, has that crazy sex scene with Che in Carrie’s kitchen, and then has that big fight with Carrie right after, I think what we see is a person who was in hibernation. A person who would’ve been so unhappy for so long and didn’t feel like they had agency because the thing they wanted was not to be married to this person anymore. And that didn’t seem possible, so I think they just shut down.”
While season two plays out on screens, Nixon will enjoy a quiet summer — due to the writers’ strike — though she hopes to finally go on a honeymoon with her wife, 11 years after they got married.
“My youngest son is going to camp for four weeks, which has never happened before,” she says. “So it seems like a good moment to do it.”
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