Trending 2nd February 2022 by Amie Edmonds

‘And Just Like That’ Creator Reveals What Stanford’s Storyline Would Have Been

Willie Garson, who played the role of Stanford, sadly passed away in September of 2021.


Creator of And Just Like That, Michael Patrick King, has revealed what Stanford’s, played by the late Willie Garson, would have been. Willie, who played Carrie Bradshaw’s best friend Stanford Blatch in the original Sex and the City series, sadly passed away in September of 2021 from pancreatic cancer.

Willie did appear in the first few episodes of the reboot as he managed to film some scenes before his death. In the show, his absence was addressed when Carrie returned to her apartment to a note from him revealing that he left the States to go to Tokyo for work.

Now, Michael Patrick King has revealed the original plans for Willie and the character of Stanford.

“Stanford was going to have a midlife crisis. Stanford’s character always had a borderline career as a manager, and we were like going to explore the fact that it wasn’t a real career,” he shared with Variety.


“It was going to be Carrie and him, feeling the shifts. Anthony and him were probably going to have split anyway. Then we would keep both of them in, and everybody would be relieved that they were divorced because it was not pleasant for anybody.

“But there was a series of really fun, flirty, hilarious confidante scenes with Carrie that I loved. That old, old, very specific chemistry that Carrie and Stanford have, which is based totally on the uniqueness of Willie and Sarah Jessica’s history.”

Adding that they wanted Stanford’s exit storyline to be as straightforward as possible, he explained: “Life and death is one thing in fiction: When it’s real, it’s not funny or cute.

“I didn’t want to even flirt narratively with cute business about where he is. I knew the audience would never invest in it, because they knew he was never coming back.

“It’s the most threadbare writing I’ve ever done just to move him along without much manoeuvring because it was just so sad. There was no way I could write myself out of that in any charming, cute way.”

Tags: