Cynthia Nixon has found herself relating to her iconic Sex and the City character Miranda Hobbes more and more since the show first premiered 25 years ago — but not necessarily for the reasons you’d think.
In a new installment of Them’s YouTube series Becoming, the And Just Like That… actress and activist reflected on how her career has grown and changed over the years.
Nixon began acting at just 12 years old, making her Broadway debut two years later as Dinah in The Philadelphia Story. She continued working both in theater and in TV and film roles, which included playing her future co-star Sarah Jessica Parker’s sister in the 1982 TV movie My Body, My Child.
Of course, the actress got her big break playing the career-driven, relationship-avoidant Miranda in Sex and the City. Although Nixon noted that at the time, she was preoccupied with “what an incredibly white show it was,” she understands the appeal the show holds for its large LGBTQ+ fanbase.
“I think queer people across the board saw themselves in the show, because [the four main women] weren’t looking to live heteronormative, cookie-cutter lives,” Nixon said. “They were on an adventure to discover themselves.”
Nixon was already in a long-term relationship with a man and had a child when Sex and the City began in 1998, by the time it had ended in 2004, she was in a relationship with now-wife Christine Marinoni. After she won an Emmy for her portrayal of Miranda in the series’ final season, Nixon recalled enormous amounts of press inquiry into her relationship. When the couple reached out to lesbian publicist Kelly Bush for guidance, she was initially shocked when Bush suggested simply confirming the news.
“It was like somebody told me that there actually was a Santa Claus, or you could fly if you wanted to,” she said.
Although Nixon acknowledged that had she come out early on in her career there could have been negative repercussions, she’s worked steadily since confirming her relationship back in the early aughts. She remembered that when she won a Tony Award in 2006 for her role in the play Rabbit Hole, fellow nominee Lisa Kron came up to her afterward and said, “I would’ve liked to win. But getting to see you kiss your butch girlfriend on national TV… how could I feel anything but thrilled about this?”
Nixon went on to play notable queer roles, such as Emily Dickinson in the 2016 film A Quiet Passion and Gwendolyn, the love interest of Sarah Paulson’s Nurse Ratched in Ryan Murphy’s 2018 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest prequel series Ratched. But prior to And Just Like That…, she drew more attention running for New York State Governor against since-impeached incumbent Andrew Cuomo. These days, Nixon looks back fondly on lesbian politician Christine Quinn calling her an “unqualified lesbian” at the onset of her campaign, although she personally prefers to be called queer.
And of course, everyone remembers where they were when Miranda encountered the one-and-only non-binary comedian Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez) in the buzzed-about Sex and the City sequel series And Just Like That…
When showrunner Michael Patrick King asked Nixon whether she wanted Miranda to be queer in the new show, she responded: “I mean, why not, right?”
“If we’re trying to move forward [in terms of representation], here’s a really obvious way we could and should move forward,” Nixon added. “You can bring in queer characters, but you’ve got a homegrown queer character. Why not use the native plant?”
Nixon found herself relating to Miranda more in the later seasons of Sex and the City, as she opened herself up to long-term partnership and became more okay with putting her insecurities on display; her now being canonically queer doesn’t necessarily make her feel closer to the character. However, she is proud of the different precedent that Miranda and Che’s first sex scene set.
“All the guys in Sex and the City are always the second fiddle to the woman,” Nixon noted. “And for the first time [in that scene], you had two major characters that were equally important, that were having sex with each other. That felt really different to me.”
You can check out Nixon’s full Becoming video here.
