Sarah Michelle Gellar is ready to return to the Sex and the City universe in And Just Like That
Sarah Michelle Gellar wants to bring back Sex and the City icon, Debbie (Getty/HBO)
More than 20 years after her iconic cameo in Sex and the City, Sarah Michelle Gellar is ready to revive her character in HBO Max’s reboot series, And Just Like That.
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star appeared in season three of the hit HBO series as over-enthusiastic junior development executive Debbie who wanted to turn Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) columns into a full-blown Hollywood movie starring Matthew McConaughey.
At the time, Gellar had a hectic schedule filming Buffy, which meant that finding a spare moment to appear on Sex and the City was difficult to pull off.
“I was desperate to be on it and [creator] Darren [Starr] had written me a couple roles and I couldn’t get out of Buffy to film and I was really upset,” she told ET.
Happily, the New York-based Sex and the City crew came to Los Angeles to film, meaning she was able to squeeze in her cameo in the 2000 episode “Escape From New York”. Even so, getting the scene done was as chaotic, with Gellar running over to the SATC studio at 10pm after working on Buffy since 5am.
“[Star] said to me, ‘We’re coming to L.A. I’ll make it work’, so he wrote this role,” she continued.
“I had a 10 p.m. call time for Sex and the City, and I said, ‘Are you gonna get to me?’ because I had been working since five in the morning.
“He said, ‘We’re gonna get to you, we’re gonna get to you.’ I got there at 10 p.m. They got to me at 5 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. the next day, so I was delirious doing that scene, but I was also deliriously excited.”
Despite the fleeting appearance, Gellar is keen to reprise her character in HBO Max’s revival And Just Like That, which premiered in December 2021 – and she’s got a pitch prepared for showrunner Michael Patrick King, too.
“I feel like the [development] girl, which is what she was then, is probably running a studio and maybe she has a place to come back,” Gellar reflected, before cheekily adding: “Michael Patrick King, are you listening?”
And Just Like That follows Carrie (Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davies) a decade after Sex and the City 2.
It is noticeably missing Kim Cattrall, who played Samatha Jones. She refused to return after major speculation of a falling out between her and Parker behind the scenes. In the new series, her character has moved to London.
The HBO series has been renewed, with the second season aiming to hit screens in the summer.
Gellar has made a big return to TV this year with her role as arson detective Kristin Ramsey in Paramount+ series Wolf Pack.
And after the announcement that horror classic I Know What You Did Last Summer would be getting a sequel with the original cast, many were hoping to see Gellar bring back her fan-favourite character, Helen Shrivers.
However, Gellar confirmed that Helen was “dead dead”, so for now, our only hope of nostalgia rests with Debbie.
