This is what Stanford’s storyline would have been had Willie Garson not died

Beloved actor Willie Garson tragically passed away last year from pancreatic cancer at 57-years-of-age, while filming the highly anticipated Sex and the City reboot.

Show bosses strategically wrote the actor out of the show, by having him move across the world to manage an up and coming star, explaining his sudden absence in a handwritten letter to best friend Carrie Bradshaw.

During a Q&A with Variety, show creator Michael Patrick King opened up about the storyline which they had planned for Stanford Blatch, but never got to film.

“He was in all 10 episodes. Before I knew that Willie was sick and couldn't complete it, Stanford was going to have a midlife crisis,” King explained.

“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. It was going to be Carrie and him, feeling the shifts,” he continued. “Anthony [Marentino, Stanford's husband played by Mario Cantone] 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.”

Speaking about his decision to write Stanford out of the show in such a casual manner, King said it was “the most threadbare writing I've ever done.”

“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,” King confessed.

“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.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by SJP (@sarahjessicaparker)

Following Garson's shocking death, many of his Sex and the City co-stars took to social media to share heartfelt tributes, including close friend Sarah Jessica Parker, who wrote, "It's been unbearable."

"Sometimes silence is a statement. Of the gravity. The anguish. The magnitude of the loss of a 30 + year friendship. A real friendship that allowed for secrets, adventure, a shared professional family, truth, concerts, road trips, meals, late night phone calls, a mutual devotion to parenthood and all the heartaches and joy that accompany, triumphs, disappointments, fear, rage and years spent on sets (most especially Carrie's apartment) and laughing late into the night as both Stanford and Carrie and Willie and SJ."

"Willie. I will miss everything about you. And replay our last moments together. I will re-read every text from your final days and put to pen our last calls. Your absence a crater that I will fill with blessing of these memories and all the ones that are still in recesses yet to surface."

Concluding this harrowing tribute, Parker said, "My love and deepest sympathies and condolences to you dear Nathen. You were and are the light of Willie's life and his greatest achievement was being your Papa. These were his last words to me. 'Great bangles all around.' Yes. Godspeed Willie Garson. RIP."

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