Cynthia Nixon on Miranda's And Just Like That journey: 'Menopause gets a bad rap'

It's been 11 years since Sex and the City fans caught up with Miranda Hobbes, and it turns out she's gone through a lot of changes. As we've learned in the first three episodes of And Just Like That, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has ditched her red hair, decided to leave her job as a corporate lawyer to get a Master's of Human Rights degree, developed a bit of a drinking problem... and may even be open to exploring new frontiers in her sexuality.

Ahead of AJLT's fourth episode, dropping Dec. 23 on HBO Max, EW talked to Nixon about Miranda's ongoing evolution, her horny teenage son Brady (Niall Cunningham), and her awkward introduction-turned-budding friendship with Dr. Nya Wallace (Karen Pittman).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What interested you about revisiting Miranda and the other characters in the Sex and the City universe?

CYNTHIA NIXON: I've always been so proud of our show, and I think it stands up mostly really well to the test of time. But the thing I never liked about the show was how incredibly white it was. So there were a lot of opportunities if we went back and revisited these characters — certainly diversifying it and expanding the universe of the Sex and the City world was a big part of it. We wanted to try and do it as well as we could so that the new characters were really fully three-dimensional people. Because if you draw really interesting characters, then you can get total kick-ass performers to play them, and that's what we've done.

It was so groundbreaking when we first did it because we were women in our 30s being very frank about our sexual appetites and we weren't pretending to be shyer than we were about it. To show these characters now in their mid-50s, still deeply interested in sex, as well as work and friendship and children and all the other things, seemed like a great opportunity and to catch these characters up with what the world looks like in 2021.

In the premiere, Miranda says, "We can't just stay who we are." What discussions did you have with creator Michael Patrick King and the writers about how Miranda has changed, and what were you specifically interested in exploring with her?

Of course, there are some things I can say and some things I really can't, but I think the thing that interested all of us was, let's not just keep these characters where they are. Let's not tread water. The show has always been very great about letting us evolve and change and age, and so we certainly wanted to do that much more. These characters are in menopause, and menopause gets a bad rap, and it has many unpleasant parts of it, but it's a real opportunity. It's an age of opportunity — I think almost like a second adolescence where, you know, maybe your kids are largely grown and maybe you have the bandwidth to change a career or to go for something in your career that you've never been brave enough to try before. That's what's happening with Miranda. The Trump years and the Black Lives Matter movement really were a wake-up call for her. There's more life behind her than there is ahead of her, and she doesn't want her tombstone to say, "Here lies Miranda. She was a corporate lawyer."

Miranda's first meeting with her Black professor, Dr. Nya Wallace, was very awkward. Were you surprised at how Miranda handled it when you first read it on the page?

No. You know what? I thought it might go on too long, ironically, but now I see that how long it goes on is really the beauty of it, and the deliciousness of it, and the painful, squirmy cringiness of it. One of the things about Miranda is she's very brave. She's not afraid to stick her neck out and she never has been. She's trying to educate herself and trying to have conversations about race, which are very often awkward when they're had among people who don't have any practice at it. It's easier to keep silent. In some ways, even though she's tongue-tied and embarrassing herself and saying a lot of the wrong things, it seems like pure Miranda, who is striding out there and trying to say what she believes, even if she hasn't quite worked out what that is yet. [Laughs]

Can you give us a little preview of Miranda's evolving friendship with Nya?

They really are interested in each other and admire each other. For Miranda, Nya represents a door to a world that she desperately wants to be in, a world of political activism and a world of political change. Nya's a professor and there are all these incredible, politically engaged young people around and Miranda wants to be around them and learn from them. For Nya, who's a bit younger, Miranda is an impressive professional woman who's achieved a lot in her life and has managed to do the motherhood and professional career thing. Nya is contemplating having a family and wants to bend Miranda's ear about how do you do that? They each have knowledge that the other one wants, and then they just actually have great chemistry and like each other.

At home, meanwhile, Miranda is dealing with her sexually active son Brady and his practically live-in girlfriend. What can you tell us about how this parenting challenge will play out?

It's very challenging. And made all the more challenging by the pandemic. It's like, there's a plague outside. You were a sexually adventurous person and believe people should be in charge of their own sexual and reproductive lives — are you really gonna tell your 17-year-old son, who you know is having sex with his girlfriend, that they can't do it in your house during a pandemic? What are they gonna do [instead]? Go to parties and have sex in a basement? No. It's not the ideal choice, but it's probably the best choice of the ones that presented themselves.

We need to talk about that shotgun moment between Che and Miranda. It certainly played as a very intimate and charged moment between them. Is that the vibe you guys were going for?

I don't know. I think you're seeing something there that's just not there. [Laughs]

Agree to disagree on that. But tell me about shooting that scene — Sara said it was one of their first days on set?

The very first thing that Sara had to shoot was that whole [stand-up] routine. And Sara's not a stand-up. I think Michael Patrick King, who is a stand-up, just doesn't understand what a leap that is for people to make. Also, we are aware that entering the Sex and the City universe is a lot. It's quite a formidable, fast-moving train that you're just being asked to leap on top of and ride while you're doing a 10-minute comedy routine. It was great fun, and we had such amazing background players that day. People were asked to come as themselves.

What can you preview about Miranda's relationship with Che as the season progresses?

The show is called And Just Like That — you think your life is a certain way and then something happens, and just like that, everything looks different. I think everything that happens to Miranda in these 10 episodes is all about putting her in a trajectory where she has no control. Miranda, like the rest of us, loves control. She's always figuring things out so she can be in control of everything. Well, she can't — right? She can't be in control of going back to school and being 30 years older than everyone else. She can't be in control of her sexually active, pot-smoking, semi-defiant son. She can't be in control of these feelings she's having out of absolutely nowhere. It's like, let's throw her for a loop and see what happens.

Related content:

Cynthia Nixon on Miranda's And Just Like That journey: 'Menopause gets a bad rap'

Related Articles