‘And Just Like That’ hid death spoiler by referring to Mr. Big as ‘she’ during funeral scene until a slip-up

And Just Like That… employed a creative strategy for hiding Big spoilers.

In a new episode of Kristin Davis’ podcast Are You a Charlotte?, Molly Price, who portrayed Susan Sharon on Sex and the Cityand its Max sequel series, recalled how AJLT stopped background actors from learning about the death of Mr. Big (Chris Noth) while shooting the character’s funeral scene in the second episode of the show.

“They didn’t want anybody to know that Big had died,” Price remembered. “So when they were speaking, when the background workers were in the art studio — which is where we filmed that day, right, in Chelsea — they would use ‘her,’ ‘she.'”

Price said that the primary cast only filmed the scenes that directly discuss Big after the extras were dismissed, and the main cast was sworn to secrecy until the background actors were released. “They didn’t want anybody to know, so the whole day, we had to keep it a secret,” she explained. “The background artists were all under the impression that the person that they were there to memorialize was a woman.”

However, one of Susan Sharon’s lines raised questions for an unknown background actress. “I had a line, my line was, ‘Am I the only one that remembers what a f—ing asshole he was?'” Price recalled. “And the girl that I had to say it to was sitting next to me at the funeral, and I remember after we finished shooting, she said, ‘Why did you ask me if he was an asshole if the person that died was a woman?'”

Price attempted to evade responsibility for the gaffe. “I said something like, ‘I didn’t write the episode, I don’t know, you’d have to ask the writers,'” she recalled. “‘I’m going to craft services, seeya later. Bye.'”

Davis later said that the funeral sequence marked the first time she ever saw Sarah Jessica Parker break character during a take. The actress behind Charlotte York explained that the production had yet to finish a video montage of Big to project during the ceremony, so as a placeholder, the cast watched videos of animals.

“There was puppies and kitties and pandas,” Davis explained.  “They’re doing close-up after close-up, and we’re watching the puppies and trying to have our feelings, and I think it was just one more angle, and Sarah was just like, ‘Ahh!’ and just fell on her knees and put her head in my lap and just started hysterically laughing, which I have never experienced before in my life.”

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Listen to the full conversation between Price and Davis above.