Actor Sara Ramirez (L) has been cast in the upcoming Sex and the City reboot. (Getty Images)
The Sex and the City reboot has cast non-binary actor Sara Ramírez to play an “outrageously funny” queer, non-binary podcast host.
HBO Max’s upcoming And Just Like That… will see Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda Hobbs (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis) all reprise their original roles.
But after Kim Cattrall, who played brash public relations boss Samantha Jones, announced she won’t be a part of the reboot, questions mounted over who – if anyone – would be taking her place.
And according to Deadline, Grey’s Anatomy star Sara Ramírez, 45, will be doing just that.
The bisexual actor will be playing new character Che Diaz, described by the outlet as a “non-binary, queer stand-up comedian who hosts a podcast on which Carrie Bradshaw is regularly featured”.
“Che is a big presence with a big heart whose outrageous sense of humor and progressive, human overview of gender roles has made them and their podcast very popular,” it added.
“Everyone at And Just Like That … is beyond thrilled that a dynamically talented actor such as Sara Ramírez has joined the Sex and the City family,” said producer Michael Patrick King in a statement.
“Sara is a one-of-a-kind talent, equally at home with comedy and drama – and we feel excited and inspired to create this new character for the show.”
The original Sex and the City‘s approach to diversity can pretty much be summed up with the Post-it message Berger infamously left Carrie: “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.”
LGBT+ folk and people of colour were few and far between – and when they did appear, were often one-dimensional if not outright offensively written. And the less said about the second Sex and the City film’s sojourn to Abu Dhabi, the better.
Both the show’s creator, Darren Star, and Sarah Jessica Parker have admitted that the HBO show, which originally aired in the 1990s into the early 2000s, failed to represent LGBT+ people.
In a 2018 interview, Parker even shrugged off the possibility of a Sex and the City reboot as the show looks “tone deaf” 20 years on.
But now, it seems that Parker and the show’s creative leadership are trying to write the wrongs with And Just Like That…, with bosses making more of an effort this time around to make it more inclusive.