| Mr. Big | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Pilot (episode 1.01) |
| Last appearance | Sex and the City 2 |
| Created by | Candace Bushnell |
| Portrayed by | Chris Noth |
| Information | |
| Aliases | Big |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur Financier |
| Family | Mrs. Preston (mother) |
| Spouse(s) | Barbara (first ex-wife) Natasha Naginsky[1] (second ex-wife) Carrie Bradshaw (wife) |
"Mr. Big" is a fictional character in the HBO series Sex and the City, portrayed by Chris Noth. The character's name is mentioned in the pilot episode but not used throughout the series until the last episode, when his first name is shown on Carries mobile. His full name is John James Preston. He is the primary on-and-off love interest of the series' protagonist, Carrie Bradshaw, who usually simply refers to him as "Big".
According to accounts in the press, the Mr. Big character was based on publishing executive Ron Galotti, former publisher of GQ and Talk. Bushnell told New York Magazine in 2004, "He was one of those New York guys with a big personality — you just notice him as soon as he walks in the room," and "I called him Mr. Big because he was like a big man on campus."[2]
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"Big" appears in the first episode of Sex and the City as a very wealthy and mysterious man who accidentally bumps into Carrie on the streets of Manhattan. The nickname "Big" refers to his status as "the next Donald Trump" and "major tycoon, major dreamboat, and majorly out of [Carrie's] league". When Carrie and Samantha bump into Big at a nightclub, Samantha tries to hit on him, but he tactfully declines. In the first few episodes, he and Carrie frequently bump into one another, until finally Big suggests the two of them should bump into one another on purpose. Carrie agrees and thus begins their on-again-off-again relationship. Big calls Carrie by the nickname "Kid." Their conversation about being in love has become an iconic Sex and the City moment: Carrie asks Big if he has ever been in love and he replies, "Ab-so-fucking-lutely!"
Carrie eventually falls in love with him, despite his frequent displays of commitment and intimacy phobias. His runic and reserved communication on relationship issues and Carrie's coping with the ambiguity are a frequent plot device. Carrie repeatedly returns to the relationship even though he is clearly emotionally unavailable to her and unable to meet her needs. They break up repeatedly, over the course of two years, for those reasons, before Big marries a gorgeous twenty five year old socialite and Ralph Lauren employee named Natasha (Bridget Moynahan) after dating her for only five months. This hurts Carrie as she wonders why he could take steps with Natasha that he refused to take with Carrie.
Within seven months of his marriage, he begins to chafe at his matrimonial bonds and pine for Carrie; he initiates an affair with her. Carrie, who is in a committed relationship (with Aidan Shaw) at the time, feels guilty but continues to see Big. The affair continues until Natasha discovers Carrie fleeing from the marital apartment. Natasha trips and breaks her tooth while chasing after Carrie, who ends up taking Natasha to the emergency room. As a result, Carrie ends the affair. Carrie later finds out that Big and Natasha have divorced.
Big and Carrie eventually manage to become close friends. He relocates to Napa Valley, and they are able to discuss their other on-going relationships with each other. But their sexual chemistry always remains just below the surface, and their friendship never remains strictly platonic. After reading Carrie's book, Big begins to understand how much he has hurt her, and he empathizes further when a woman he is dating treats him in a fashion similar to the way Big has treated Carrie: at arm's length, eschewing true intimacy.
The series finale, An American Girl in Paris, Part Une and Part Deux, ties together all the emotions and interactions that have taken place between Carrie and Big throughout the series. Absent for most of season six, Big suddenly reappears in Carrie's life near the end of the season, once again at the wrong time. Carrie, who is tired of his games, makes it clear that he can no longer jerk her around. However, Big is a man who goes after what he wants, and he is desperate to win Carrie back. The season finale depicts his quest with a suspenseful and romantic attempt at reunion.
The series finale takes place over two episodes in which Carrie moves to Paris with her current boyfriend, Russian artist Aleksandr Petrovsky (played by Mikhail Baryshnikov). In the first half of the finale, "An American Girl in Paris Part Une", Big shows up outside Carrie's apartment in New York after she fails to return his phone calls. She is on her way to her last dinner with the girls before departing for Paris. Big invites her to sit inside his limo and begins apologizing for what happened the last time he and Carrie were together. Carrie rushes to tell him it's fine and uncomfortably tries to leave. After he is cut off during his apology, Big attempts to ask Carrie out to dinner. When she rejects him, he asks her for drinks and is surprised to be rejected again. It seems the tables have turned and he is now the one feeling needy. This just makes him want her even more, but she is tired of his endless cycle. She explains that she is moving to Paris with a man that she's in a relationship with. Big ironically asks Carrie when she was going to tell him that she was moving to Paris (early in their relationship, he decided to leave NY and move to Paris without telling her, and again subsequently, she arrived at his apartment with take-out food only to find him in his empty apartment, packing the last box of belongings because he had purchased a home in and was moving to Napa -- again without telling her). Carrie gives him an annoyed look, tells him she has to leave, and then rushes out of the limo. Big chases after her, asking her what that was all about. He teases her about moving to Paris with a Russian and then tries to tell her that she's "The One". Carrie loses her temper and tells him that he cannot hurt her again. She explains that she has been enduring his games for six years and makes it clear that she can no longer take it. She wonders if he has some kind of radar that lets him know she is happy so he can "swoop in and shit all over it." She tells him to forget where she lives and forget he even knows her name. Then she rushes off to meet her friends for dinner, leaving Big alone and confused on the street.
Big is not quick to give up. When Charlotte stops by Carrie's apartment one day, she hears Big leaving a message on Carrie's answering machine, asking her for one last chance. Charlotte picks up and invites him to meet with her, Miranda, and Samantha. He asks them if they think Carrie really is happy and if he has any shot of winning her back. After much deliberation, Miranda tells him to "go get our girl." Mr. Big then disappears until the second installment of the finale, "An American Girl in Paris Part Deux".
Carrie is distraught and unhappy in her relationship with Aleksandr. She passes Big in his limo on the street in Paris while looking for a cab but neither of them see each other. This scene, however, alerts the audience that Big is in Paris and that he is searching for Carrie. The irony of them running into each other on the street but not seeing each other adds to the romantic anticipation of their reunion. The limo rides on and Carrie continues on her way.
Big reappears in Carrie's hotel lobby at just the right moment, as Carrie is squatting down, tearfully gathering up stray diamonds from her broken necklace. She is waiting for a new hotel room, as she just walked out on Aleksandr after a big fight. Big comes through the door and as Carrie looks up and sees him, she begins to cry. She explains that everything is a mess and Paris isn't what she thought it would be. Then she tells Big that Alexandr slapped her during a fight they were having (although it was an accident). Big becomes protective and immediately begins climbing the stairs to Aleksandr's room to reprimand him (or as he puts it, "kick some Russian ass"). In a desperate attempt to stop him, Carrie trips him and they both fall to the floor. The two lovers begin laughing hysterically at each other. The chemistry between them that was evident from the very first episode is validated once more with this scene. They give up seeking out Petrovsky and take a romantic stroll in Paris. Big gives her his jacket and explains that it "took him a very long time to get here." He tells her she's the one and she asks him to take her home to New York. They arrive at Carrie's apartment late at night and she asks him if he wants to come up. He answers with a memorable line he used in the first episode ("abso-fucking-lutely"), which reminds the audience that he is still, in fact, the confident, sexy Big that Carrie has been in love with from day one.
His real name, John, is finally revealed on her cell phone caller ID after she returns to the city and he calls to tell her he is closing the sale of his Napa estate and coming back to New York. Executive producer Michael Patrick King has stated that by never revealing his real name, Big remained "always slightly out of reach" for Carrie, and this plot device is maintained throughout the entire run of the series. Although we see his name in that final shot, Michael Patrick King makes a point (in the DVD commentary) that we never hear it spoken in the series.
In the feature film Sex and the City: The Movie, Carrie and Big decide to marry, after Carrie brings it up when she starts to feel anxious about her relationship's position. She has just returned from an auction of jewelry from the collection of a woman who was the long-time girlfriend of a wealthy man, who was abruptly dumped and thrown out of the apartment she'd shared with him for many years. The cautionary tale worries Carrie, so Big proposes in order for Carrie to have legal rights to the fabulous penthouse they are purchasing together. However, their plans for a simple wedding balloon out of control after Vogue decides to feature her in a wedding gown in the magazine. The twice-divorced Big feels it has degenerated into a "circus," with hundreds of guests, unwanted publicity, and a tremendous designer wedding gown taking over the original plan for a small, private ceremony. An ill-thought comment from the just-separated and upset Miranda rattles him further. Just before the ceremony Big gives in to cold feet and bails, but rethinks the decision minutes later and rushes back. He intercepts Carrie as she is leaving the ceremony. A broken-hearted Carrie attacks him with her bouquet, shrieking "I knew you would do this." He repeatedly attempts to apologize and explain then and after, but Carrie ignores his letters and emails, and they spend months apart (close to a year) with no contact whatsoever.
When Carrie hires an assistant, Louise, she instructs her to "put Big in a place where she never has to hear from him again." So Louise creates a folder in Carrie's e-mail that is password protected and Big's many e-mails are saved in the secret folder. Charlotte later gives birth to a baby—her water breaking while she is yelling at Big for breaking Carrie's heart. Big takes her to the hospital and stays until the baby is born, hoping to run into Carrie. When Carrie arrives at the hospital they tell her the tale and Harry reveals that Big begged her to call him, and that he's written her many letters. Puzzled, Carrie goes home and scours her mail, realizing that his e-mails are in Louise's secret folder. She guesses the password and finds that Big has re-written numerous love letters by poets, and one from himself promising to love her forever. Carrie's assistant reminds her that she left a pair of never-worn Manolo Blahnik shoes in the penthouse that she and Big owned, and that the locks will be changed for the new owners that day. Carrie rushes over to the penthouse to find Big there, holding her shoes. She runs into his arms as she can no longer deny her still very strong love for him. again, with Carrie narrating, "It wasn't logic; it was love," and the two quietly marry at New York City Hall.
In Sex and the City 2 Carrie always wants to go out, while Mr. Big would prefer to stay home and watch television some evenings. After Carrie returns to her old apartment to work on an assignment and their reunion is particularly sweet, Big proposes to be separated for two days in the week, with one of them staying in Carrie's old apartment, which she has always kept. Carrie agrees, despite misgivings and the questioning of Charlotte.
In Abu Dhabi, Carrie runs into her former love Aidan. Carrie and Aidan dated twice. They broke up the first time because Carrie and Big had an affair. They broke up a second time because Aidan still couldn't trust her after all that time due to her affair with Big, and after Aidan proposes, marriage doesn't sit well with Carrie, so the two break off their engagement. Aidan is now married with three boys and is in Abu Dhabi on business. The two agree to meet for dinner, despite warnings from Charlotte who feels that Carrie is "playing with fire". The two kiss before Carrie breaks away and runs to her hotel. Distraught about what to do, she eventually calls Big to confess to the kiss. He becomes distant and won't return her phone calls.
When Carrie returns to New York, the apartment is empty and she sits all day waiting for him to come home. He finally returns that evening with her 'punishment': Carrie must wear a black diamond ring to remind herself that she is married. The two reconcile and kiss. The film concludes with a montage of scenes from the girls' lives - Big and Carrie have successfully combined their desires and interests, and the two are content as their married life has grown past the "Terrible Twos".
One interesting moment in the episode "Easy Come, Easy Go" (season three) involves Carrie running into Big and Natasha at a furniture show, shortly after Carrie begins dating Aidan Shaw (Carrie quips that she is Aidan's "Booth Bitch"). After introducing her boyfriend, Carrie is about to introduce Big (presumably by name), when she nervously spills coffee on him instead, derailing the scene and thereby neatly avoiding having to ruin the mystery of Big's name for the audience.
In the episode "Defining Moments" in season four, Carrie begins introducing Big to the jazz musician, Ray King (played by Craig Bierko), but is interrupted when Ray tells Big that his drink is "running low."
In "The Caste System", Carrie is asked by Jeremiah, a waiter at a party, who she is with. Angered at Big at this time, Carrie simply responds, "Some guy."
In the episode "Three's a Crowd" in Season 1, Carrie is talking to Big's ex-wife, Barbara, when she asks if Carrie is with anyone. Carrie avoids the question so as not to let Barbara know she's seeing him therefore keeping Big's name a mystery.
In "The Agony and the 'ex'tasy" in season 4, Carrie calls Big but gets the answering machine where he introduces himself with his number instead of his name.
In the episode "The Big Journey" in season 5, Carrie is having a question and answer session during her book reading in San Francisco. Big raises his hand and asks her if the Big character in her book has a real name. Carrie responds by saying she has to protect his identity and can't use his real name.
In the final episode of the series Carrie receives a call from "John" which is Big.
In the full trailer for the Sex and the City: The Movie, Big's name is revealed to be John James Preston. In the movie, it is the first time we hear Carrie call him "John" instead of Big.
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