With a lifetime of experience, a wealth of creative ideas, and true love at long last,
Kim Cattrall's best is still ahead of her.
And she's worked hard for every bit of it.
Kim Cattrall was born in Liverpool, England on August 21, 1956, but her parents immigrated
to Canada when she was around three months old.
Her mom, Gladys, was a secretary, her father, Dennis, was a construction engineer.
In a 2019 interview with The Guardian, she recalled,
"Dad was always telling me, 'You can do anything.'
So I grew up thinking that if he believed in me, I could do whatever I put my mind to."
Despite leaving England as a baby, Cattrall maintains a strong connection to her homeland
and even supports Liverpool Football Club.
Discussing her love of soccer in 2010, Cattrall told the Daily Mail,
"I don't follow the game as closely as my dad does.
[...] When Liverpool are on the telly he'll sit there with his scarf and mug, on his Steven
Gerrard pillow."
The actor's dad died of pneumonia in 2012.
Her mom died ten years later, aged 93.
Cattrall may be a big Hollywood star now, but she has never forgotten where she came from.
Kim Cattrall once faced a hilarious case of mistaken identity connected to her Canadian roots.
Speaking to The Guardian in 2019, Cattrall quipped,
"I was mistaken for Justin Trudeau's mother on 60 Minutes when they flashed up my picture
instead of hers.
I dated his father briefly way back."
Word of the mix-up got back to the Canadian prime minister, who seemed to enjoy the mistake.
Cattrall explained to The Guardian,
"Weeks later Justin introduced me to his mum at an event and said, 'Meet my mother, Kim Cattrall!'"
Clearly, both Trudeau and Cattrall can take a joke.
As to how she wound up dating 62-year-old Pierre Trudeau when she was just 24, Cattrall
shed some light on the situation during a 1981 interview with Maclean's, saying.
"I asked myself, 'How do you go about getting a date with the prime minister?'
and then I just decided to call him up and ask for one."
"I'd vote for him.
He's really cute."
While their brief romance didn't turn into anything serious, Cattrall has only good memories
of her time with the Canadian prime minister.
Sex and the City fans were enthralled with the onscreen friendship between Carrie, Charlotte,
Miranda, and the iconic Samantha, played by Kim Cattrall.
Apparently, however, the actors playing those characters weren't as close offscreen.
During an appearance on Piers Morgan's Life Stories, Cattrall got candid about her time
on the show, saying,
"We've never been friends.
We've been colleagues.
And in some ways, it's a very healthy place to be."
Basically, playing Samantha Jones was just a job for Cattrall.
Sarah Jessica Parker had a different recollection of their time on the show.
During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Parker revealed,
"I found it very upsetting because, you know, that's not the way I recall our experience."
"If one more person calls this a catfight.
[...] I'm not in a fight.
I have never fought with Kim."
Parker added that she was left feeling heartbroken by Cattrall's comments and hoped there was
a way forward for their relationship.
Cattrall, however, decided to double down on her insinuation that she was never that
close with her Sex and the City squad, telling Variety,
"I guess it's how you define friends.
I think we were colleagues.
My colleagues aren't my friends.
It was professional."
Sex and the City ran for six seasons on HBO, and was followed up by two movies.
Throughout the run, the show's stars were kept incredibly busy, which forced Kim Cattrall
to make some tough decisions about her personal life.
At the time she booked the role of Samantha, Cattrall was in her early forties and married
to her third husband, Mark Levinson.
In an interview on the Women's Prize For Fiction podcast, Cattrall opened up about her choice
to remain childless on account of her hectic work schedule, saying,
"I just thought that I have to make a decision here for my well-being.
And I love to work, my work has been my passport to my independence and my freedom and my education."
"I have nineteen hour days on this series.
I have weekends where I finish at Saturday morning.
How could I possibly continue to do that?"
Cattrall chose to focus on her own health and needs while working in the entertainment industry.
And, in the process, she helped normalize the idea that it's okay not to have children.
Kim Cattrall has been married three times.
In 1977, she married her first husband, writer Larry Davis, but they separated just two years
later in 1979.
The star married for a second time in 1982, this time to German architect André J. Lyson.
The couple divorced in 1989.
Cattrall told the Boston Herald about the split, saying,
"I did it in a private way."
Her third marriage to recording engineer Mark Levinson also ended in divorce, and this time,
Cattrall blamed her job on Sex and the City for the breakup, telling an Australian reporter that:
"[Sex and the City] cost me my marriage, because I was never home.
I was never there and my husband got lonely and upset and competitive, and it was really
difficult, it was really hard."
The couple finalized their divorce in 2004, after six years of marriage.
Placing the blame squarely on the series that catapulted her to superstardom, Cattrall described
the cause of her split, saying,
"[I ended] up spending more time with my Sex and the City family than I did with my real family."
Sex and the City ended in 2004, but the cast reunited for two follow-up movies, 2008's
Sex and the City and 2010's Sex and the City 2, which followed the four friends on vacation
to Abu Dhabi.
While rumors of a third movie persisted for quite some time, it was later revealed that
Kim Cattrall decided not to return as Samantha Jones, effectively canceling the sequel.
"You know, for me, I feel that the most important thing is always: do we have something left
to say?"
In an interview with Variety, Cattrall confessed that she wasn't a fan of the premise of the
third movie, which involved Samantha receiving unwanted explicit photos from Miranda's teenage son.
She also her feelings about future installments clear, saying,
"I felt that when the series ended, I thought that's smart.
We're not repeating ourselves.
And then the movie to end all the loose ends.
And then there's another movie.
And then there's another movie?"
"You seem to have a lot of opinions today."
Cattrall was ready to step away from the role of Samantha Jones, and she definitely wasn't
prepared to film a storyline that she felt didn't serve her character.
Whereas Samantha Jones is known for her reluctance to settle down, in real life, Kim Cattrall
is in a long-term committed relationship with British audio engineer Russell Thomas.
The pair first met in 2016, when she appeared on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, on which Thomas
was working at the time.
It wasn't long before they realized they had a real connection.
In 2020, Cattrall discussed the early days of her romance with Thomas, telling People magazine,
"We kind of liked each other, we kept in touch and then he came out to Vancouver.
It was very brave of him because we didn't really know each other, other than having
a few meals together.
But he came and we got along great, and we've been together ever since!"
Perhaps the relationship works so well because Thomas allows Cattrall to tap into her English roots.
Speaking to The Times, Cattrall said,
"My partner [...] is British, so I think I feel more British."
Regardless of why they first connected, Cattrall and Thomas' romance appears still to be going strong.
In February 2018, Kim Cattrall's family was devastated by the news that her brother, Christopher
Cattrall, had died by suicide.
Since Christopher's death, Kim has been open about the difficulty of processing the loss
while living in the public eye.
She expressed as much in a 2019 interview with The Guardian, saying,
"The shock of his death was so extreme that I can't fill that void.
It's made me more aware of how fragile we all are.
It can happen to any of us."
Since losing her brother, Kim has often paid tribute to her younger sibling on social media.
In January 2022, she marked what would have been Christopher's 59th birthday with an emotional
Instagram post, captioned,
"Happy Birthday, sweet 'Topher'.
We miss you today and every day. RIP."
Kim has also been candid about how Christopher's death would have impacted her late dad, telling
The Times,
"I'm just glad my father wasn't alive to experience it.
As tough as he was, I don't think he could have taken it."
In a surprise move, it was revealed that Kim Cattrall would make a cameo in the second
season of the Sex and the City spin-off, And Just Like That…
"I never thought I'd see this day."
"You and me both."
"Hell just froze over."
The announcement delighted fans, who'd been eagerly awaiting an update on Samantha.
But Cattrall's return to the Sex and the City universe may have come with stipulations.
According to Variety, Cattrall managed to shoot her cameo without having any contact
with former colleagues Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon.
She also allegedly didn't see or speak to showrunner Michael Patrick King and was only
convinced to return by HBO chairman and CEO Casey Bloys.
The scene will apparently see Samantha speaking with Carrie on the phone, which explains how
she managed to swerve the entire cast.
Cattrall's change of heart is certainly surprising considering her own comments in interviews
regarding the spin-off.
For instance, when Variety asked if she had considered returning for And Just Like That...,
Cattrall replied,
"I was never asked to be part of the reboot.
I made my feelings clear after the possible third movie."
As for whether she'd make another appearance on the show, Cattrall responded,
"That's a no.
It's powerful to say no."
Having been born in Liverpool, England, Kim Cattrall holds a special place in her heart
for all things British, including the royal family.
During a 2023 interview with The Times, Cattrall was asked if she considers herself a royalist,
to which she replied,
"Absolutely.
My father was an officer in the King's Regiment and growing up I remember him saying, 'I would
take the bullet for the Queen.'
I was very impressed by the chivalry."
Despite having immigrated to Canada as a baby, Cattrall's roots remain strong.
In 2010, she was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University, proving
that the city continues to celebrate the work of one of its own.
That same year, she shot down accusations she was posh, telling BBC Radio 2,
"I'm not really posh, I'm from Liverpool, love!"
Posh or not, Cattrall's identity is firmly tied to her family's connection to both Liverpool
and the royal family.
Over her six seasons as Samantha Jones on Sex and the City, Kim Cattrall filmed plenty
of sex scenes and regularly appeared nude onscreen.
However, the actor takes a different approach to onscreen nudity now, telling Variety in 2022,
"I don't want to be nude anymore.
I'm 65.
I'm in great shape.
But I'm just not interested.
I feel like I filled my quota on that one — and without an intimacy coach."
"It's time for ladies my age to cover it up.
We can't get away with the same stuff we used to."
In recent years, intimacy coaches have become an important presence on TV and movie sets,
helping actors navigate sex scenes and nudity, and ensuring that they're protected every
step of the way.
However, that wasn't always the case.
Speaking to Variety, Cattrall revealed that the closest thing she had for protection during
racy Sex and the City scenes was an intimate body shield, made by the show's famed costume
designer, Patricia Field.
"She called it a 'K.C.
Cup' that would cover, like a jockstrap, both actors if the scene required it."
For those wondering, that's K.C.
as in Kim Cattrall.
Describing the completely different experience she had while filming HBO's Queer as Folk
reboot, the star added,
"Instead of someone from the wardrobe department holding a housecoat for you when they said
cut or putting a towel over you, they had this person there who'd say, 'Okay, stop!
We need this protected there.'
It was like a fairy godmother."
Times have certainly changed when it comes to filming sensitive scenes, and it sounds
like Cattrall is down with this development.