The need for change, to continue forward, not to get caught up in who we were or who we are is the great theme of And Just Like That, the sequel series (available on HBO Max) of the one that marked a time and a moment, sex in new york.
In his fifties, his three protagonists are in a personal crossroads that has left us speechless in more than one chapter. Widowhood, new sexual desires, questions of identity... And, furthermore, the city they step on, walk through and love so much is no longer the same either.
New York is not the same as it was in February 2004 when the last episode of Sex and the City premiered. It is not the same as those years of luxury and absolute glamor (and forced cleaning of the streets) at the turn of the century.
And above all, it is not the same after the pandemic. And Just Like That starts in an idyllic present (Hasn't the series always been very fanciful?) in which the pandemic has already completely ended, but they talk about it, about how it was. Only that in reality, the city in which they had to shoot had not and has not yet surpassed it.
Back to the usual 'cellar'.
“We hoped that the city would have been reborn by the time we started shooting,” he explains. Joe Severy, location manager of And Just Like That. “We wanted to bring back that amazing city feeling that you had watching the original series. when New York became a character from the beginning. But it was difficult, especially in the first weeks of shooting: there are many empty premises, many places closed, few people on the street…”.
Sevey and his team began locating in early February of last year. A few weeks later, filming began and lasted until December. “The hardest thing was finding restaurants at first because many, as there were no people in the city, did not want to open until summer, ”he says. They even considered dressing up empty premises or building on set, but finally they were able to solve it with authentic restaurants and bars to provide that layer of urban realism.
New friends, new restaurants.
UPTOWN GIRLS
And beyond the pandemic, the age and plot of And Just Like That forced to show another New York. A city more daytime than night, more towards the outside than the inside and with a broader route throughout the map. Although Carrie is still very well off in Manhattan (and on her Upper East Side where her house is supposed to be), she is less reluctant to move to the other side of the island or even move to other neighborhoods.
“Because of their age, the characters are doing other things, we no longer needed so many bars or nightclubs. We shoot a lot during the day, food scenes and breakfasts more than dinners, " Sevey tells. “Charlotte's children are at school, Miranda's is at university… it's a different lifestyle. Even so, we wanted to maintain that idea of eat in fabulous places and a great social life”.
By subway!!!
The three protagonists also have new friends and that opens the range of the type of city that can be shown. Miranda takes the subway (by subway!) from Brooklyn to Columbia University, going through the whole city. Carrie is about to become a Downtown woman on her expensive rooftop. And more come out there.
"We spent a lot of time, for example, thinking about the perfect place for that first meal in the first episode," says Sevey. That big comeback. They chose the Untitled (now just Whitney Café), the downstairs café-restaurant of the Whitney Museum. “We wanted to show a new world for them and that was in Downtown, even though they are Uptown women, They spend a lot of time in lower Manhattan.”
Seema (Sarita Choudhury) opens a new city for Carrie.
Carrie's house is one of the few locations that she repeats. The neighbors of the number 66 Perry Street, in the West Village, they must be glad that the craze for following in the footsteps of the fictional writer is back in fashion. But luckily for them, there will be many more places of pilgrimage. What Rockefeller Park where, surprise, the three have a picnic. "Perhaps because of the covid issue, we looked for many more outdoor locations," confirms Sevey. He too Chelsea Market's Lobster Place, the restaurant Dante, Quality Bistrot, Smith's Bar, Empire Diner, a classic, “perhaps the oldest place that appears in the series”, says the locator.
They go to Bushwick and Greenpoint, in Brooklyn, to Harlem, to the East Village. The Museum of the City of New York they make him go through the school of Charlotte's daughters. The map of the friends has changed a lot. Although there is still many rides through midtown where the biggest challenge was avoiding flat masks and filling it with people. "It was very sad to set up the camera and not see people," says Sevey. “At the end of the season, it was something else, the streets were already filling up. But the city is still struggling to find its rhythm again.”
Lots of walks through Midtown.
That rhythm that And Just Like That remembers. “We wanted to show a vibrant, different city, finding places that people do not usually notice. And I think it's hopeful,” says Joe Severy. “I hope that people watch the series and think that the city is going to return to what it was”. This is a tribute to that city that all of us (also non-New Yorkers) want to see again.