Samantha’s storyline in “Sex and the City” was as hilarious as it was emotional. Surprisingly, one of the character’s most powerful moments was actually improvised by actress Kim Cattrall (who, interestingly enough, also improvised a key moment in the sequel series “And Just Like That…”).
The moment in question came during Season 6, Episode 19, when Samantha, who was diagnosed with breast cancer five episodes earlier, spoke at a benefit for survivors of the disease. She tore off her wig during the address, triumphantly waving it around in defiance of her cancer. “That was completely unplanned,” the actress revealed to Entertainment Weekly. “And the poor hair people were like, ‘Noooo!'”
“It was written that I take it off,” Cattrall recalled. “But I waved it up in the air like a banner and threw it like, I can’t bear it anymore.”
The ad-libbed moment was infectious for the extras in the scene who were playing benefit attendees. “I just ripped it off when we were doing a take and just started waving it around, and people in the audience started doing it too,” she explained. “It became part of the scene. Because it was like, Screw it! Screw it.”
Kim Cattrall’s Samantha ad-lib let her take her power back
Cattrall’s ad-libbed moment was one of the impactful scenes in “Sex and the City.” It finally felt like Samantha was taking back her power from the cancer that creeped up on her in the last few episodes of one of the best HBO series of all time — but doing so in her own, uniquely Sam way.
“I thought to myself, Samantha wouldn’t just take it off. She would use it as a kind of strip, some revealing of the truth,” Kim Cattrall explained to Entertainment Weekly. “And that was always where she was coming from: Oh, I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I even lost my hair with cancer, and this is who I am. I loved that storyline.”
The moment felt right, a pitch perfect reflection of how fans would’ve pictured Samantha handling this kind of personal tragedy. Cattrall’s love for the heartfelt storyline and how she let that bleed into her improvisation made this scene one of the most memorable in “Sex and the City” history.