This week marks the 25-year anniversary of Sex and the City‘s release, with the HBO show first airing in 1998.
25 years, six seasons, two movies and one spin-off series later, we’re still referencing our favourite foursome on the regular, with nostalgic stories from the SATC golden years going particularly viral this week ahead of the second instalment of And Just Like That – dropping later this month.
One of the characters who got the world talking the most was Carrie’s main love interest, Mr Big, played by Chris Noth – from the A-list actor who almost bagged the role, to the fact that SATC writer Candace Bushnell was in his corner.
Mr Big’s name was undoubtedly the biggest reveal in SATC, with it taking us a whopping six seasons to find out his name. In fact, show producers waited until the series finale for the big reveal, where the name “John” popped up on Carrie’s diamante flip phone.
But why the name, “John James Preston”? And why was it a secret for so long?
Executive producer Michael Patrick King opened up about the decision in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, explaining that they very almost didn’t reveal Mr Big’s name.
In fact, it turns out that the character didn’t even have a name until they wrote the series finale, with the idea added almost as an after thought.
“In the last episode, in the last moment, I realised I had to say Mr Big’s name and I just [wrote] John”, he explained in the interview. “And then I told all the writers and they were like, ‘What the hell?’ And I was like, ‘We have to say his name because now he’s real!'”
When asked “Was it always John?” the SATC executive producer replied, “In my mind? No. He had no name. He was Mr Big.”
Explaining the name choice, he continued: “If I wanted to give him a name, I wanted to give him the most generic, American, almost pilgrim name. There’s no spin, it’s just John.”
And Just Like That returns to HBO and Sky Comedy on 22 June 2023.