Former Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall has challenged a common misconception about her much-loved character, Samantha Jones.
The 68-year-old actor played the sexually voracious public relations executive on the series from 1990 to 2004, with Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, taking on the roles of her best friends, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte respectively.
Cattrall’s unapologetically promiscuous character – unmarried, by choice, in her forties – became something of a feminist icon but was commonly labelled a nymphomaniac due to her exploits.
Speaking to The Times, Cattrall said: “She wasn’t a nymphomaniac – well, some people might have thought she was – but she was just enjoying the main course. Everyone else was nibbling on the appetisers when she was going for the steak.
“And it was always on her terms – that I always insisted on,” she added. “But, I’m the antithesis of her [Samantha] in many ways. I’m a serial monogamist, and then some.”
Cattrall married the Canadian writer Larry Davis when she was just 19. The marriage was annulled after two years. In her twenties, she married the German architect Andreas Lyson, which lasted seven years.
In her early forties, Cattrall married for the third time – the musician Mark Levinson. In 2002, the couple wrote a book together: Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm but separated two years later.
Cattrall reprised her character of Samantha Jones in the duo of Sex and the City feature films released in 2008 and 2010.
She did not return for the show’s reboot And Just Like That in 2021 amid reports of a feud between her and Parker and has since confirmed she will not appear in season three of the series.
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“I created a fantastic character that I loved, and I put a lot of love in it,” Cattrall told The Times. “And if I’m remembered only for that, then that’s really OK.”
The star turned down the role of Samantha four times before she accepted it. At 41, she didn’t think audiences would see her as sexy.
“Self-inflicted ageism,” she reflected. “Well, that changed – 40 became sexy. It became, ‘Man, let’s have more of that.’”
