The women of “Sex and the City” transition from the friendship they had in their 30s to a more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis return as Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte. Willie Garson, Chris Noth, Mario Cantone, David Eigenberg, and Evan Handler all return to portray their characters from the original series. Joining the cast this season are the multitalented Nicole Ari Parker, Sarita Choudhury, Karen Pittman, and Sara Ramírez.
We were on the scene at the NYC world premiere at MoMA talking to all the stars. Check out our video above and some of our interviews below.
Cree Cicchino
The Knockturnal: How did you get involved with the show?
Cree Cicchino: Well it just came through a regular audition like a regular tape and I had a very deep real binge of the show over 2020 with my mom so I was a huge fan, so it seemed just way too good to be true and I was going to be playing Brady’s girlfriend and it was like this is too perfect so I just sent in a tape, I didn’t hear anything for a month so I was like I guess that’s done and then I got it and it was wild and probably as much my mother’s night as mine because we were both just shocked and amazed and I’ve been frozen ever since just not processing anything.
The Knockturnal: What is the biggest thing you learned on set working with all of these icons? What did you take away? What did they teach you?
Cree Cicchino: I think how to stay really calm and grounded on set because it’s a huge production, there’s a million moving parts and some of the scenes I had with everyone were out in the streets of New York so the paparazzi were a lot, there were fans on the street, and I was really unaccustomed and not familiar with any of that but they were cool, calm, collected just eyes focused on the work and not affected by it and really grounded and I took that away just that lesson and staying calm and not getting frazzled by all of that.
The Knockturnal: What do you think will surprise us the most when we watch the show tonight?
Cree Cicchino: Surprise you the most, I mean I think it’s the characters you know and love but they’re in really different spots in their lives and really different spots in the city and in the world so I think maybe be surprised about how new and fresh it feels, it really is a new show.
Niall Cunningham
The Knockturnal: Niall are you giving your mom and dad a hard time? I feel like it’s going to be a little bit of drama.
Niall Cunningham: Yeah Brady definitely is a cause of drama, I feel like a great challenge for Miranda you know who wants things done her way, but yeah just getting up to any of the nonsense that any 17-year-old from New York gets up to.
The Knockturnal: Did you know you would be the full product of the red hair this season? Were you aware of that going into this?
Niall Cunningham: I was not but it was a welcome you know surprise because I loved, I mean I think Cynthia looks amazing gray, yeah it looks great, but now I feel like my red really pops on the screen, I was like oh my gosh is my hair really that red? I guess so!
The Knockturnal: It’s your look to own now, she has passed it on! This being a sort of a reboot or a comeback, is it more pressure this time around? Do you feel like being around this big iconic name like Sex and the City, was the pressure on for you?
Niall Cunningham: I mean I feel like I just got lucky to be apart of it, I feel like there is definitely such scrutiny and I’m also kind of ignorant of that, like the cast that’s been around knows that and knows the hype and I remember the late Willie Garson talking to me about just like seeing paparazzi that had been around for years and years and are showing up on our set still, which is crazy, but it all feels far away from me I wonder what next week will feel like but we will see.
The Knockturnal: Lastly, what do you want people to take away after they watch this show? What kind of message do you want people to take away?
Niall Cunningham: Just that people at any age can change and that we are always changing and that’s what I’d say.
Karen Pittman
The Knockturnal: We are so excited to have you in this I mean once I heard Karen was in this I was like oh they’re taking this to the next level. What was your first reaction to getting that call?
Karen Pittman: Well I was really excited because I know Michael Patrick from another show that we have worked on and know all the actresses from where this show started and then when I heard Sarita and Nicole and Sara were in it I thought this is going to be wonderful, this is going to be great.
The Knockturnal: So tell me a little bit about your character this season?
Karen Pittman: I can’t tell you all but I can tell you that Dr. Naya Wallace is a law professor, Miranda meets her in her class, she’s married, she’s in love with life, she’s smart, she’s sexy, she’s from Brooklyn, she wears grays, she brings a lot of fashion and a lot of culture to the story. I love her, she’s my favorite character on the show.
The Knockturnal: What kind of message do you think people are going to take away after they watch the show?
Karen Pittman: I hope that they take the message that we can find some common ground, change is good, it’s possible to do something different and actually really embody it and enjoy it and do a good thing. I think that this show is the product of people deciding that they needed to transition to something different and you’re going to see that story over and over again through the arc of this season.
Alexa Swinton
The Knockturnal: What are your earliest memories of the show?
Alexa Swinton: You could be like four years old and have heard your mom mention it you know what I mean or your dad, anyone honestly your parent has definitely mention it at some point because everyone knows what it is, even if they’re like oh you know I’ve heard of it, they know exactly which every character is so I knew, I have great parents they knew exactly what it was. My dad was like, ‘yeah I’ve watched it,’ he knew everything about every single one of the characters.
The Knockturnal: So who are your mom and dad’s favorite characters going into the show?
Alexa Swinton: I’m going to say my dad is probably Samantha and my mom’s going to say Charlotte, I feel like she dresses a lot like Charlotte and I feel like she kinda reminds me of her.
Michael Patrick King
The Knockturnal: Did Sarah call you or did you call Sarah?
Michael Patrick King: We have that symbiotic thing where she called me and said, ‘hey I’m thinking about maybe we should talk about something’ and I was like okay so we started talking about the idea of something else around the old show and all the sudden I called her up one day and I said why are we talking about the old show, let’s do a new show and she was YES YES and then that was how it started and that was a little over a year ago and that’s pretty quick for television.
The Knockturnal: I’m sure you have a little cache of course, so things move fast.
Michael Patrick King: Because they have to, because we wanted it to come back in this time, it’s very present right now, the show feels very current to me. But the old show Sex and the City, felt very current to its time, so we were really interested and ready to come back and show where New York is right now.
The Knockturnal: Which is in a crazy place.
Michael Patrick King: The whole world’s in a crazy place, people individually are in a crazy place, so really this is about friends going through this craziness together.
The Knockturnal: Coming back for a second time, what was the most important thing going into the show?
Michael Patrick King: Well we have always been about really interesting women characters, characters that we multidimensional and had many facets, so when I knew we were going to come back and we were going to come back in New York now, it gave us an opportunity to include more of New York that didn’t fit in the other show because of the structure of what that show was so we got to include many more interesting characters, four gigantic ones, and many fringe ones and it’s fun to come back and play with these characters that people know so well but change the stories.
Chris Jackson
The Knockturnal: This is such a big project, what was the call like?
Chris Jackson: Michael Patrick King called me and asked if I would consider being in the show, which is a real flex to be able to say that but honestly before he even finished I was like why are you asking me if I wanted to be on it, why don’t you just say when to show up and what I get to wear. Like that’s it, that was all that was really discussed
The Knockturnal: So no talk about your character or anything like that?
Chris Jackson: He had in mind what the character should embody, he told me that all I needed to do was show up and tell that story and I felt like that was all the cosign that I needed, it was such a confidence booster to have that kind of enthusiasm for anything I’m doing
