Sarah Jessica Parker has addressed the fan criticism over her character Carrie Bradshaw’s delay in calling 911 after the traumatic death in And Just Like That.
In the Sex and the City reboot, Parker’s longtime love John James Preston, otherwise known as Mr Big, dies in the first episode after suffering a heart attack shortly after concluding his Peloton ride.
In the episode, Carrie walked into the couple’s apartment just in time to witness her husband’s final moments, during which she cradled Big in the shower rather than immediately calling for help - a choice that sparked mixed reactions from viewers when the show premiered.
While appearing on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen this week, Parker was asked about the moment, with the actor noting that “of course she called 911”.
Parker then reflected on the criticism over the delay, acknowledging that it is an “understandable and logical expectation” that she would have reached for the phone as soon as she saw her husband on the floor.
However, according to Parker, she views the scene in the show as “suspended animation” and the response times portrayed aren’t an actual representation of the time that passed. “It’s this moment where everything stops and then whatever collapsing of time that happens does not stop her from taking care of somebody in a fashion that you would want and expect from your partner or husband or wife,” she continued.
Parker then told viewers that they would walk through the scene together, with the actor explaining that, in her head, her character “struggled through this moment” and tried to get Mr Big to be responsive and then “she, you know, came to her senses, I’m going to say after about two to three seconds … and then, of course, she called 911 and got all the help she needed from professionals”.
Parker’s explanation comes after viewers, including Jonah Hill, criticised Carrie’s slow response.
“But why didn’t Carrie call 911 immediately?!” the actor wrote on Instagram shortly after the episode aired in December.
As for the reason the show’s creator Michael Patrick King gave for the delay, he also previously told Entertainment Tonight that Carrie didn’t call 911, from either her own phone or her husband’s, because the moment wasn’t actually as long as it is portrayed to be.
“First of all, his phone was in the shower and was soaked,” King said. “She didn’t pick up that phone because what we did in filming that isn’t a real moment, that’s a split second before she ran over to him. We made it be what they felt, time stopped, that’s not real time. Time stopped. It wasn’t a casual moment; it was what they were feeling in that moment.”
Elsewhere in her interview with Cohen, Parker addressed Kim Cattrall’s absence on the show, as well as the reboot’s handling of the missing Samantha character.
