Sarah Jessica Parker says Big dying on ‘And Just Like That’ was like losing ‘1 of the main arteries’

It’s been almost four years since Sex and the City fans said their goodbyes to Chris Noth‘s unflappable John “Big” James Preston, and Sarah Jessica Parker still remembers her visceral reaction.

“Big dying was really, really hard to do both professionally and personally,” Parker told E! News in a new interview. “That’s not just a thread. It’s one of the main arteries that you would struggle to do without.”

Parker and North’s Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big were one of the main romances throughout Sex and the City‘s six-season run. The couple went through their tumultuous trials and tribulations before officially tying the knot in the 2008 film of the same name. Big appeared in the film’s 2010 sequel as well, before suffering a fatal heart attack in the premiere episode of HBO Max’s And Just Like That after riding a Peloton.

The episode ends as Carrie finds Big collapsed on the floor, the shower beside him running. Trying to help him up, she loses her shoes — the blue Manolo Blahniks she wore to their wedding. “And just like that… Big died,” Carrie says in her iconic voiceover. And our heroine was single once again.

The show’s second episode, “Little Black Dress,” is dedicated to Big’s funeral and chronicles the aftermath of the devastating loss.

“It was really sad to say goodbye to that,” Parker said of Carrie and Big’s rollercoaster relationship. “It’s not like I needed it for my own health or wellbeing, but that was a hugely wonderful story to tell for a lot of years.”

A wonderful, if undeniably messy, story, Parker also admitted. Carrie and Big’s relationship has long been the subject of intense scrutiny from fans and critics alike, a fact that doesn’t detract from the star’s reverence for the coupling.

“It was romantic, and it was a disaster,” Parker said, adding, “It was destructive, and it was healthy.”

While the 60-year-old “just felt really untethered” when she learned of Big’s death, good things were on the way for the onscreen widow. After a time of mourning, Carrie reunited with her other main love interest, Aiden Shaw (John Corbett), in season 2.

Corbett will join returning stars Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis when the series returns to HBO Max on May 29 for season 3, as well as a whole slew of new characters to the show’s bubbly and spontaneous vision of New York City.

Previously announced newcomers run the gamut from Rosie O’Donnell to Patti LuPone to Cheri Oteri. Entertainment Weekly can also confirm the arrivals of Jackie Hoffman (Only Murders in the Building), Ryan Serhant (real estate agent from Owning Manhattan), as well as a few other names.

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On April 15, HBO Max shared its first trailer for the new batch of episodes, confirming the main story will play out during one hot New York City summer (in the non-climate sense). Carrie is all set up at her new three-floor Gramercy Park home and has a complicated thing going on with Aidan, who is making a comeback despite needing a five-year break from Carrie to focus on his sons.

Miranda (Nixon) also hits the dating scene while getting progressively closer to Joy (Dolly Wells), a producer at the BBC we met in season 2. And Charlotte (Davis) is grappling with her daughter, Lily’s (Cathy Ang) new relationship with a male ballerina.

“The phrase that I would use for season 3 is ‘new,'” executive producer Michael Patrick King previously prefaced to EW. “It’s new everything.”

Watch the full trailer for And Just Like That‘s new season above.