Michael Patrick King, writer and director of Sex and the City, once said the series was about a group of friends fighting against society.
It’s a sentiment that Nicole Ari Parker, one of the stars And Just Like That, believes is true of the sequel too.
“From what I read on the page and what we shot, it seems like a fight against society,” Ari Parker tells The National.
“People forget that we are the society, that we do walk around at home in our underwear, that we do cry as grown-ups, that we are petty and obnoxious sometimes. And to write that into the fabric of the show, I think it's fighting against society's portrait of themselves.”
While it is a fun show with great moments of fashion and humour, Ari Parker adds that it still is “a mirror being held up to what goes on in our private lives and in our friendships".
The actress plays Lisa Todd Wexley, a filmmaker, philanthropist, art collector and an Upper East Side socialite. Her story line revolves around her work, friendship with Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and her domestic life as a mother of three children, married to a hedge fund banker.
Her first season storyline was one of the marked differences in the revival of the show, which presented a more diverse cast and reflected a more authentic New York.
“There was a big change in season one when they added new characters – people had very strong reactions,” Ari Parker says.
“For me, adding a storyline for actresses of colour, because now the city actually looks like the city, wasn't challenging for me. I was happy that the writers tried to do those characters justice. These are the kinds of women that are my friends, that I know. So, I felt that even in this fantastical world of fashion, these were real people.”
In the second season, Ari Parker says new characters, including Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman), Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury) and the polarising Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), should all settle into a rhythm with the original cast members, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Davis.
Despite the diversity, the characters are unified by similar experiences as women in their fifties, she says. “It's pretty realistic, it's a breath of fresh air,” Ari Parker adds.
“It's funny, especially if you have kids, as a woman in your 30s, a whole part of your life is taken up in a way. Most women I know, at least in America, you finally get your life back at 50. You kind of pick up where you left off. So, it's wonderful to have women in the writers’ room who portray that.”
Despite these positive storylines, the show's first season received a lot of backlash – which Ari Parker says is understandable given how much the original show meant to many people.
“I just think it's more reflective of the human condition right now,” she says.
“We’re so overwhelmed with stimuli, we want something we can rely on, something that looked exactly the way it looked before.”
Ari Parker understood specifically the sensitivity around Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), a fan favourite, not returning to the show in a tangible way. And Just Like That features all the elements Sex and the City was known for – the fashion, its sense of fun and wit – it simply wasn't the show that audiences knew before.
But not all the backlash was easy for Ari Parker to understand or process.
“I think the most disturbing was a little bit of racism,” she says.
“But that's the kind of climate we're in, where on Instagram, everyone just can blindly speak their mind.”
She credits Patrick King’s leadership skills along with the original cast members for supporting the ones who play the new characters through the more toxic criticism.
“They're all seasoned in this 25 years of commentary from the peanut gallery, so they really helped the new girls through that a lot,” she says.
“But we're human, you know, it hurts some days and then some days it was like, 'meh, we're still fantastic'.”
Inevitably the actress feels that that the backlash says a lot more about the people who are complaining than the show itself. What’s more important to her are the conversations show sparks.
“There's a lot of reaction, but they're all watching,” she says.
“It was actually a number one hit. People hate watch, and people love watch. And I just love that it's triggering people to talk.”
