[This story contains some spoilers from And Just Like That season two, episode five, “Trick or Treat”.]
Sara Ramirez doesn’t know what it’s like to have a pilot based on their life, but the And Just Like That star knows someone who does.
“When [the And Just Like That writers] wrote this, I was like, ‘OK, this sounds like that thing that happened to that person that I knew,'” Ramirez, who plays Che Diaz, the Max series’ resident nonbinary, straight-shooter comedian and podcaster, told The Hollywood Reporter about their character’s early season two arc. (The interview was conducted before the July 13 SAG-AFTRA strike). “They were hired by a certain network to do a sitcom of their life, and interestingly enough, they had very similar experiences. Not the same as Che, but similar in that they were being projected on to.”
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Early in the Sex and the City continuation’s second season, Che is grappling with a new job — one where their life is the central inspiration for a potential TV comedy. Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda has moved to Los Angeles to be with Che on this new professional — and ultimately, personal — journey that turns out to be a little rockier than either of them anticipated.
That’s largely because Che’s “story” is being shaped and reshaped by executives who want to take the actor and comedian’s identity and mold it for sitcom audiences. Che isn’t interested, and finds themselves in constant back-and-forths around creative decision-making on the fictional pilot. Whether it’s the color of the character’s hair or the ethnic and racial identity of their onscreen counterpart’s father, played by Tony Danza, Che is facing a win-some, lose-some situation that reaches a boiling point.
“This is capitalism we’re engaging with, so it wants to flatten us. It wants to make us a more digestible version of ourselves for folks who don’t have the range,” Ramirez explained. “So that story has always stuck with me.”
For Ramirez, the entire debacle — which results in the pilot not moving forward after a nonbinary LGBTQ test audience member dings it in audience research — is “heartbreaking.” But it also reveals something about the nature of Hollywood.
“It’s also kind of hilarious, because it’s poking fun a little bit at the Hollywood machine,” they said. “Some of these truths are very universal about Hollywood. Hollywood likes to chew us up and spit us out. That’s just kind of known. So for those of us on the inside, it’s kind of hilarious. But I’m very, very curious for folks who aren’t on the inside of the industry to see what they make of all this.”
While Ramirez didn’t directly relate to this part of their early season two journey, they told THR that the storyline itself was fueled in part by how they and Michael Patrick King, And Just Like That‘s showrunner, wanted to explore Che for season two: “We both agreed that it would be so important to give them an experience like the Hollywood machine, to see what’s going on underneath, to peel back the layers of their humanity to see what’s what’s brewing under there when they’re not in full control or in a performative state.”
Ahead of the season two premiere, King told THR that getting the chance to make Che “more dimensional and human” was thrilling. “The reaction to Che in the multiverse that is Sex and the City and And Just Like That was a chance for us to really show what else is in a human being besides the label that you’ve put on them, or, even more advanced than that, that they’ve put on them that they’re constantly evaluating,” he said. “So, yeah, I love the chance to show the vulnerability. And also, with Sara Ramirez, I knew it would be deeply felt, whatever it is.”
One way audiences really get to see Che’s vulnerability this season is when they’re forced to confront Hollywood’s obsession with weight. After a pilot fitting where a costumer makes a comment about the podcaster and comedian’s stomach, Che comes home to Miranda and reveals their own insecurities around their body size. The timing for plotline was particularly interesting for Ramirez, who said they were reading Belly of the Beast, a look at the relationship between anti-Blackness and fatphobia from Da’Shaun Harrison, a fat, Black, disabled and nonbinary trans writer.
“It makes such a powerful point — the politics of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness,” they said. “So I was in the middle of that book, and we started filming this scene, and I remember talking to some producers, like, ‘Have you even heard about this concept?’ And they were just like, ‘Whoa!'”
Ramirez said that exploration of others’ anti-fatness and “internalized fatphobia” was a part of Che’s early season two journey to which they could relate. “That’s something that most of us, if not all of us, have grown up with,” they said. “It’s been really helpful for me to have had the growth that I’ve had around my internalized fatphobia. I’m not in the place that Che is at with it, but as the actor, I was able to recall what it feels like to give your power over to people who don’t know you or care about you, and then fall apart in your own relationship about it. And those kinds of universal truths are relatable.”
According to the actor, what Che was experiencing may have been something bubbling up from their past. “That shit is so harmful. It’s really painful for so many of us, and we saw what I believe to be maybe a childhood issue of Che’s come up again, and it’s almost like their inner child showed up.”
But that’s not the only way And Just Like That has brought Che’s past into the present. Shortly after, the character has a near sexual throuple experience with Miranda, and their old partner, Lyle — a character Ramirez says is “played beautifully” by Oliver Hudson. The audience might see the moment as largely about how Miranda and Che’s intimacy expands and shifts, resulting in new boundaries for the original Sex and the City character, but it’s just as much about Che.
“It was important to bring that past into the present to shake Miranda’s world a little bit around how well she thought she knew Che — only to find out that through Lyle, she was actually going to get to know Che even better. And in a sense, get to know herself,” Ramirez said. “What she sees is the chemistry and the relationship — the friendship — that Che and Lyle have. They’re not together anymore, but they have each other’s backs. And just because they’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean they’re not open to exploring something in some kind of way again.”
Ramirez continued, “It really validates Che’s humanity as somebody who used to be in a marriage that they’re not in anymore. It hearkens back to another chapter, another time in Che’s life, but it’s a part of their past that they’re bringing with them to their present. And those people are so valuable — people who knew us from another time, but love us in the present. It’s so important to have that modeled.”
Ramirez gave props to Hudson as the newcomer for being able to navigate that space with them and Nixon in one of several scenes this year that get more intimate than last season. The scenes required not just trust among the characters, but also among the actors offscreen.
“Oliver was just such a joy to work with and showed up as such a respectful cis dude in the room when being asked to tell certain kinds of stories with us,” the actor said. “I felt so safe with him. I really appreciated how he showed up.”
The sequence is also one of several examples of season two not only going sexier, but authentically exploring the nature of modern identity and relationships, as well as modern sensibilities about intimacy and sex.
“It illustrates Che’s openness and sexual freedom within themselves, that they cultivate and co-create trust with people to where no one has to lie, and everyone can show up asking for their needs to be met,” they said. “It’s all about consent culture. Lyle not only represents Che’s past, but they also represent someone who has the capacity to accept them in the present and accept them for all of who they are.”
And Just Like That season two streams Thursdays on Max.
