Ever since the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That… premiered on HBO Max in December, one name has been on everybody’s lips: Che Diaz.
Unfortunately, that name is rarely invoked in a positive context. The nonbinary podcast host and “comedian” (air quotes are warranted in this case) played by Sara Ramirez has become the most divisive addition to the new series, turning into an internet-wide joke. (As The Daily Beast’s own Kevin Fallon bluntly put it, Che Diaz may just be the worst character on TV.)
But it didn’t have to be this way. According to a new behind-the-scenes documentary released Thursday on HBO Max, Che Diaz almost had a much smaller role on the sequel series. Viewers know Che as Miranda’s love interest and the instigator of a sexual awakening that compels her to leave her poor longtime husband, Steve. But in And Just Like That…The Documentary, Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda, revealed her character wasn’t supposed to be romantically involved with Che at all.
Instead, showrunner Michael Patrick King intended for Miranda to hook up with Nya, the Columbia law professor played by Karen Pittman.
“Originally, when Michael was trying to think about what would happen in our season, he talked about Nya, Miranda’s professor, being the romantic relationship,” Nixon explained. “Nya was a straight character and Miranda’s a straight character, and I was like, well that doesn’t sound very sexy at all!”
The actress had something different in mind. “I was like, why couldn’t it be this butch person that you’re talking about for Carrie?” she suggested, and the rest is history.
Along with that revelation, the documentary also touches on the Dolce & Gabbana-clad elephant in the room: the glaring absence of Kim Cattrall’s Samantha. When set photos of new cast members Nicole Ari Parker and Sarita Choudhury first leaked, fans were angry that fan-favorite Samantha was seemingly being replaced.
But Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, said that was never the case. “We’re not replacing Samantha,” she says in the doc. “It doesn’t make sense to replace Samantha.”
Instead, the writers decided on a simple storyline to explain Cattrall’s disappearance: Samantha moved to London after Carrie fired her as her publicist, and the two stopped speaking. “It seems very true to me that friends sometimes grow apart,” Davis said. Sarah Jessica Parker diplomatically echoed the sentiment, agreeing that Cattrall’s absence was “handled very nicely.”
King, meanwhile, went into a bit more detail about Samantha’s plotline. “I knew Kim had moved on from playing Samantha,” he explained. “I realized, oh, we can have them mirror a split that people already know, but make it really Carrie and Samantha and heartfelt, the way you lose friends.”
Whether that strategy—and the decision to insert Che Diaz into more of the season—worked is up to fans to decide.
