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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio or you're live streaming apps or listening on-demand, I'm really grateful you're here today. On today's show, we'll talk about life in post-Roe, Mississippi with the filmmakers behind a new documentary, and we'll conclude our full bio conversation about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Today, we'll hear about his detractors within the Civil Rights Movement itself and the US government.

For all you weekend landscape warriors, something to think about, why have a lawn when you can have a habitat? We'll speak with two experts about how to have sustainable greenery and take your calls and questions. That is our plan for the day, so let's get this started with actor Cynthia Nixon.

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25 years ago, we met our TV friends: Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda when Sex and the City, a series about four friends living and loving in New York City, premiered in 1998. We've all changed a lot in those two and a half decades and so have the characters who've experienced loss, sexual awakenings, adoption, and growth. Yesterday was the season two premiere of this series sequel And Just Like That, which follows the lives of these women and their friends and families in 2023. A four-star review in The Guardian says this season of And Just Like That is "intensely quotable, brilliantly watchable, and packed with hilarious high jinx".

A widow Carrie Bradshaw is easing into dating, Charlotte is coping with her desires beyond motherhood, and Miranda played by Emmy Winner and bonafide lifelong New Yorker Cynthia Nixon is on a real love journey of her own. Miranda, unsatisfied with her life, has upended everything after falling hard for a non-binary comedian Che Diaz. Miranda left Brooklyn to be with Che in Los Angeles where they are filming a pilot based on their life, but is that love enough to sustain Miranda especially so far away from her beloved New York City and her friends? Why did she really give up a prestigious internship to follow Che to LA? Well, you have to watch And Just Like That to find out.

The second season premiered last night on Max where you can stream it now. Actor Cynthia Nixon joined us to discuss this new season, which she helped direct as well. Hi, Cynthia.

Cynthia Nixon: Hi, Alison, how are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm great. How are you?

Cynthia Nixon: I'm very good. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Good. We're thinking about 25 years of Sex and the City. What were you doing professionally right before you got the gig on Sex and the City?

Cynthia Nixon: Right before. I can't remember. I think I was 31 maybe. '97 we shot it, so yes, I would have been, I think, 31. God, it's so hard to remember. I guess the main thing that was happening that overshadows everything else was I had had my first child eight months before. That's the main thing that was in my head. I had been in Angels in America for like eight months when I was 28 and I'd done a show for which I got nominated for my first Tony at 27 or actually, reversed those two, but I can't remember really 29, 30, I can't remember. Mostly I remember becoming a mom.

Alison Stewart: What was it about the script that seemed unique to you at the time?

Cynthia Nixon: The number one thing that seemed unique about it was that it shot in New York. There was very little that shot in New York at the time other than Law and Order. There had been Cosby and there was Kate and Allie, but it was almost always a TV series shot in Los Angeles. I had always, as you said, lifelong New Yorker, so it was a tremendously exciting opportunity. I had actually done a series on HBO, a limited series for Robert Altman in 1988 called Tanner 88, which was the early original programming on HBO, but this seemed incredible. It was so witty, it was so satiric, it was so cynically dark and funny and there just were all these female parts.

At the time when I auditioned, it didn't feel like there were four of them, it felt like there were a lot, there were seven or something because back in the early days of Sex and the City, we also really focus much harder than we did later on anthropologically on what Carrie was writing about in her column. We'd follow those people that we'd never see after that episode. I was like there's all these women in there, there's got to be one that I can play. After a very brief audition for Carrie, they asked me to come back and read from Miranda.

Alison Stewart: You read for Carrie first.

Cynthia Nixon: I did. I think Kristin did too. I think, yes.

Alison Stewart: That's so interesting. When did the group of you first worked together? Did you do chemistry tests or did you show up on set and "Here we are, let's go"?

Cynthia Nixon: No, well, Sarah Jessica and I know each other since we were kids.

Alison Stewart: From life, yes.

Cynthia Nixon: I think I knew Kim. Maybe I'd met her once, but I knew her work. Kristin I didn't know at all, but Sarah Jessica and I, we're New York theater kids and television kids together. It was really not until the first, I guess, read-through or something. We just had a little mini non-premiere premiere just for us on Wednesday. After this, we didn't really feed u, so I went to Balthazar afterwards with my friends that had come with me. It was so funny because I was reminiscing about, they sent us all out to dinner, the four of us at Balthazar for us to get to know each other.

I was like, I said, "I'm sorry, I have a baby, I can't come." 25 years later, I went to Balthazar on the night of our non-premiere premiere. It really felt like coming full circle.

Alison Stewart: What did the show understand about New York or get about New York that we hadn't seen before?

Cynthia Nixon: I think that the number one thing that the show understood was that women were not dying to get married. Maybe some women were, but a lot of women were having rich fulfilling careers, they were earning their own living, they were having sex when they wanted to, and they were not so interested necessarily in having children or you're getting married or at least not yet. I think that, I don't know, people understood as people who've always filmed here understood New York is an endless fascinating, ever-evolving place and a great backdrop.

In stark contrast to when you think of the very sterile LA sitcom that shot in a studio, it's really, really, really the opposite of that. Endless atmosphere and a grittiness and a realness that when you're acting in it, makes you realer and better as opposed to if you're in a hermetically sealed studio.

Alison Stewart: I just can remember, because we're the same vintage and first watching Sex and the City and being a young professional in New York at the time working at MTV at the time, and thinking this reminded me of, and maybe you remember the show That Girl.

Cynthia Nixon: Oh, sure. Of course.

Alison Stewart: Right? Because Marlo Thomas was in the city and she had the nice boyfriend and she had her job.

Cynthia Nixon: Donald, right? Was it Donald.

Alison Stewart: Right, Donald. [chuckles] The ever-patient Donald. I still remember thinking like, "Oh, wow, I can have that life? I can do that? I can think about all the traditional stuff later."

Cynthia Nixon: Yes, totally.

Alison Stewart: When we think-- Oh, go ahead.

Cynthia Nixon: No, go ahead.

Alison Stewart: I was going to move on to what Miranda is going on with her now actually.

Cynthia Nixon: Yes, you did such a brilliant recap. I'm trying to remember everything you said so that I can say it next time when somebody ask me what's happening on the show.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Cynthia Nixon, by the way. We're talking about And Just Like That which premiered last night, the second season. It's interesting, Miranda is swinging big. She's taking big swings this season. Let's talk about her exploring her sexuality first of all. What were the early conversations like about Miranda exploring who she is, her sexual identity?

Cynthia Nixon: They were incredibly brief. It was like a 30-second conversation basically. [laughs] Michael Patrick King called me and he said, "What do we want to do about Miranda? Do we want to keep her straight? Do we want to clear her up?" and I was like, "Let's clear her up. We're clearing the show-up, why not? You got a home-grown queer right here, let's just go with it." It seemed like why keep her in a box? Let's take the lid off.

Alison Stewart: I like that, HGQ, a homegrown queer. [laughter] I think you need to have a T-shirt. On that tip, though, what was something you wanted to make sure was included in Miranda's journey as she's investigating her queerness and also something you wanted to make sure you didn't do or the show didn't do?

Cynthia Nixon: Miranda and I have overlap, but Miranda and I are not the same person. However, I didn't think that we were ever in danger of doing this, but I feel like when I fell in love with the woman who was now my wife, it was a long time ago, it was almost 20 years ago, but I had this narrative really pushed on me hard by organizations that I respect and would go and speak and all kinds of things. That either I had been gay and hiding before or that I had been just really completely asleep about myself and my desires and my being and neither one of these things was true. I think now, 20 years later, it's a lot more fluidity as a concept is just out there now and people understand it a lot more.

I guess one of the things that I really wouldn't have wanted to have happened was that Miranda's falling hard for Chei would've then thrown everything else that had happened before into like, "Oh, those were all mistakes," or, "My marriage to Steve was a mistake," or, "All those men that I was infatuated with," and whatever. No, it's just that was then, this is now. I guess one of the things that was really exciting to me about all the changes that you were alluding to in terms of leaving her marriage, in terms of falling for a non-binary person, in terms of chucking her decades-long working for a law firm was that [inaudible 00:11:30] Miranda was [inaudible 00:11:35].

Again, you can say, "Oh, I wish I had done my career differently," or, "I wish I" whatever, but the main thing was I am 55 and I'm married to a person who really just wants to just kick back and take it easy and I, Miranda, don't. I want to keep going out in the world and challenging myself." I think one of the exciting things was either in the past, either Miranda dated guys who were jerks and they were both sparring with each other. I remember this particular lawyer she went out with and he was an alpha and she was an alpha and they would just fight for dominance constantly and just be terrible to each other or she had people like Steve who were happy to let her lead.

He would fold in and they found a way to dance together and have a child together in a marriage and a home, but I think that for Miranda to have a person who was leading now and Miranda didn't fight them for the leadership but actually let them lead and be like, "Wow, okay, where did you come from? You're amazing. I want to learn things from you about who you are and how you got that way and your world. Show me."

Alison Stewart: My guest is Cynthia Nixon. We're talking about And Just Like That which the second season premiered on Max yesterday. New episodes drop on Thursday nights. We'll talk with Cynthia more about Miranda's evolution as well as directing several of the episodes. Stay with us.

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You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest this hour is Cynthia Nixon. We're talking about And Just Like That which premiered on Max yesterday. New episodes drop on Thursday nights. Cynthia, it's Sex and the City, so there's sex, there's nudity, what protocols were on set for the intimate scenes? Is there a intimacy coordinator involved?

Cynthia Nixon: There are now. We have a couple of them in rotation because one of our intimacy coordinators had a baby, so she said the jokes just write themselves [laughter] when you're an intimacy coordinator and you're pregnant. We certainly didn't have anything like that back in the day. Some scenes required more finessing and some scenes required less depending not just on what was happening in the bedroom but also the people involved. Both of the women that we worked with were incredibly great resource. I have to say, as you alluded to, I directed a couple of episodes and as a director, it was particularly really, really helpful.

Alison Stewart: How so?

Cynthia Nixon: There can be a buffer then between you and the actors because actors, we want to please our director. We want to do everything that our director wants us to do, so it's actually nice. It's almost like having a lawyer representing you. She goes and has the conversation with the actors, and then she comes back to me. Also, sometimes we would, each of us, me or the actors, turn to her about what can we do to make this sexier or what can we do to make this more believable so that we actually feel like the sex act we're pretending is happening looks more like it's happening.

Alison Stewart: Has directing always been an ambition of yours?

Cynthia Nixon: I guess so. It seemed too wonderful to be true, but honestly, my mother was really my only acting teacher because I started when I was a kid. The way my mother always directed me, I think she was really a director at heart too. She would direct me very much from the outside in and the way she trained me, even before I was an actor, we would go to see plays and go to see movies, and then we would dissect them and we would certainly talk about what was so great and why did it work so well, but also, why didn't it work and what could we have done to fix it. I have to say the first time I ever directed anything on stage, it was very, of course, scary, but it felt much more natural than I would've expected.

Alison Stewart: Directors are decision-makers and problem-solvers. What was a challenge you faced when directing one of these episodes then and how did you solve it?

Cynthia Nixon: Gosh. Not to give too much away, I guess, but we have a big sequence in one of the episodes that I directed which really had to do with a big snow sequence. It's in an episode called The Bomb Cyclone. It was just endlessly trying to figure out how we were going to work with the green screens and how we're going to make the fake snow look real on the cars. It was just an endless finessing of that.

Of course, what you said is true, a director makes decisions and a bunch of things, but also a director, if you're lucky enough to be on a production And Just Like That, all the people working with you are so wildly talented and you just have to keep remembering to turn to them and not think you have to always solve the problem yourself but to say, "What I'm seeing here, this is what I'm not happy about and there's not enough of this," or, "There's too much of that. Tell me how we can make that better."

Alison Stewart: Again, we're not going to give away any spoilers, but we will say, because I've seen the whole series and it's really a great series.

Cynthia Nixon: Have you seen all the episodes?

Alison Stewart: I have seen all the episodes.

Cynthia Nixon: Wow.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] I went full in, Cynthia.

Cynthia Nixon: Wow, I'm very impressed.

Alison Stewart: Say that Miranda and Che, they're in LA. Miranda learns some new information about Che. There's pressure on Che for this new TV show, seems to really be getting to them. Miranda has some family crises, Che doesn't really seem to understand how significant the crises are. How do you think Miranda's view of Che slowly starts to change as they exit that honeymoon, that glow of, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I've met this person"?

Cynthia Nixon: I think Miranda and Che just have incredible chemistry from the moment they meet, so there's that. Then in the process of falling for Che, and then starting an affair, and then leaving her husband, and the idea that, "Oh, actually, this situation that has made me so unhappy and feel so dead for so long, I actually can walk through a door and leave." I think there is such euphoria from that that just Miranda's on an incredible high for quite a while. Being in LA is part of that high. When I, as a New Yorker, go to Los Angeles, it feels very fun and very unreal, and then eventually, real life in truth.

I think in Miranda's case, yes, she has made changes that were long overdue, but I think there is also just a giddiness of running away from, "I created a mess, not just by cheating on my husband and leaving him but I created a mess by staying in that marriage for so long and not dealing with how unhappy I was." Eventually, Miranda will have to circle back. Che said to Miranda last season, "We're not going to get married. Don't expect anything traditional," and Miranda's like, "Great, I don't want anything traditional. I've been married, I don't want to be married anymore," but when you're not following those traditional roadmaps, you don't have a roadmap.

You have to figure out, well, what are we to each other and what is this relationship and what can it be and what can't it be?

Alison Stewart: I am glad you brought up Steve, because on the YouTube video of the season two trailer, there's a comment that says, "I hope things get better for Steve in this season, #TeamSteve," and it's got about 1,400 likes. I'm just saying that could change by the series and that's all I'm saying, not to give too much away. Why do you think Steve remains such a fan favorite?

Cynthia Nixon: Because he's adorable. He's always been adorable. Look, Miranda was a really tough nut to crack, right? Miranda didn't want kids, Miranda didn't want marriage, Miranda didn't want any kind of domestic life, and it took someone as loving and sweet and gentle and just adorable as Steve, as David Eigenberg to get in there and nab her when she wasn't paying attention.

Alison Stewart: The show has engaged with issues around sexuality and gender identity and race. The original wasn't necessarily focused on the issues of race or have a diverse cast as it does now. This friend group has expanded and includes women of color. How do you think these changes have helped the show creatively?

Cynthia Nixon: Certainly, we are just a show that looks a lot more like New York actually looks, but I think the main way it's helped the show is that we have these four incredible performers who we offered these roles to and we held our breath, and then they accept it. I guess remembering my imagined fears for the show was, the original women, we're all in our mid to late 50s. My concern was that we're going to get a whole lot of young people on there, but actually, brilliantly, the new main characters are very much our peers, and that is what has made all the difference. They didn't come on, they're not our nieces or our employees, do you know what I mean?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Cynthia Nixon: They're not young women that we're instructing with our life experience. Not at all. They are each of them a powerhouse and I don't know. It's really fun to follow these women in their married life, in their single life, in their professional life, in chase queer non-binary world. It has a lot of richness to it. Look, all of the characters have foibles and flaws. It wouldn't be very interesting if they didn't, but they're all grownups.

Alison Stewart: So much of the fun of the show is about the fashion, how would you describe Miranda's look this season?

Cynthia Nixon: How would I describe Miranda's look this season? She first goes through her California look. She's like on vacation and she's like sun and sand and she's both going back and forth between LA Miranda and like, "I'm the TV star's girlfriend Miranda." Then eventually, she will come back from California. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that, but when we join her, it's fun to see Miranda trying to vacation.

Alison Stewart: I wanted to ask you, this is where it veers into real life, I follow you on Instagram and your stylist is doing a fantastic job on your press tour.

Cynthia Nixon: I know. Her name is Alicia Lombardini and she is my friend and she is my stylist and you you cannot imagine what I would be wearing if it were not for her. [laughter] I'm just left to my own devices. Nobody wants to see that, let me tell you.

Alison Stewart: What do you talk to her about? Because press tours can be grueling. Not grueling in the way busing tables is grueling, but sitting down, having to be on, being asked some of the same questions over and over again, and also having to look great while you're doing it. Thank goodness we're radio, we don't have to do that right now. I'm curious, what did you talk to her about how you wanted to look and how you wanted to feel during this press tour?

Cynthia Nixon: I'm not that kind of person, really. She knows me very well. We've worked together for years, and as I said, she's also just my friend. She knows what's out there and she's the person who really finds the interesting off-the-beaten-track kind of thing and that will suit me, but also will provide maximum contrast from what I've worn before. Certainly, I'm not saying I'm not opinionated about it in the fitting, but I certainly don't give her any directive. It's sort of in the same way I wouldn't call up one of the writers and say, "Here's what I really want to have happen to Miranda this season."

Luckily, they're in charge of that and they've got the good ideas and maybe once in a while, I'll say like, "That doesn't seem like something Miranda would do." By and large, the things that they think of are much better than I would ever think of, and any idea that Alicia has about how I could look is much more sophisticated and interesting than anything I would ever think of.

Alison Stewart: You gave me the perfect segue into the writer strike. By mentioning the writers, you've been on the picket lines, what do you want our listeners to understand about why this fight is important?

Cynthia Nixon: I want people to understand that it is harder and harder and harder for people who write for television and film who are not superstars to just actually make a living wage. That what is happening in so many industries where jobs that used to have a solid salary and health insurance and all these kind of things are becoming more and more freelance and fly by night and get your salary when you can. The fact of the matter is that people producing, I'll just talk about television because we're talking about a TV show, people producing television are making money hand over fist like never before.

Because of the streaming thing, it's still the Wild West and we don't have the protections, the salary, and any other protections that we used to have when it was just three major networks. What the writers are asking for to be shared with them is less than 2% of the gross profit. These are the people who, not only write the dialogue, invent the characters, invent the plot, come up with the idea for the whole thing in the first place. They're the basis of everything from the big idea to the line that makes you laugh or the line that makes you cry. They are the foundation of everything we do on film and on TV. 2% is not a lot to ask for, and it's less than they used to get even just 10 years ago

Alison Stewart: Before I let you go, we're going to spend the next half hour of the show discussing abortion rights and it's on something on Twitter. You've been tweeting a lot about the overturn of Roe versus Wade that I think some New Yorkers might feel a bit insulated from the idea that abortion rights could be in jeopardy. Why is that incorrect? What would you like people to understand?

Cynthia Nixon: I would like people to understand that we can't take any of these things for granted. I think the fact that Roe versus Wade was overturned, it was a moment we all feared, but I think way too many Americans thought could never happen. With this Supreme Court, not just abortion but even reproductive contraception is really coming under attack. You may feel like you're in relative safety in New York and you are in relative safety, but just think of all those women across the country who are stuck and are having children they do not want and they cannot care for because they've had their rights taken away.

Alison Stewart: Is there any other big political issue that just you'd like to take a minute to talk about? Considering I know most people know that you did run for governor of New York. You're somebody who's very politically minded and politically engaged. Any particular issue that's on your mind?

Cynthia Nixon: I don't know how climate change cannot be on all of our minds all the time. I think that the thing that happened here, was it just last week or week and a half? With the smog that. It was like we were living on Mars. You couldn't breathe, you could hardly see. Whether you're talking about smoke from fires or terrifying tornadoes or floods, it's hard to even know where you can go in the world and be safe. It's why we just have to stop with the fossil fuels now. That if we can do that, it's an incredible jobs program actually converting to solar, converting to wind, converting to other non-atmosphere destroying kinds of fuel.

It's the thing that we must do in order to save our planet, but it's also an incredible jobs creator. For those gas companies, it's just baffling to me that they are not getting on board more quickly as time is just running. We have so little time left to actually save ourselves. Also frankly, for those big companies, there is a ton of money to be made. Just leave the fossil fuels behind. Come on over to solar. Come on over to Wind.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Cynthia Nixon. You can watch And Just Like That. It premiered yesterday on Max, the season two premiere, and episodes will be dropping on Thursday night. Watch out for episodes five and six, Cynthia directed those. Cynthia, thanks as always for making some time today.

Cynthia Nixon: Thank you. It was such a pleasure to talk to you.

 

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