Nixon - who says she suggested Ramírez to King after admiring their work for years - is confused about the seismic reaction to the character. Those are his and his writing team’s jokes.” “That’s the beauty of being grown - I don’t have to receive everything! And this is Michael’s baby. “I choose what I receive, right?” they ask rhetorically. They’re eminently “aware that Che made waves,” but have deliberately avoided absorbing specifics of the online tsunami: “Other people’s opinions of a character - that’s not something I can allow into my process.” Ryan Duffin for Variety In person, they are earnest and present - and also quick to laugh. Ramírez, 46, largely didn’t do press during “And Just Like That …,” nor have they since. “And what everybody’s concerned about,” King says, “is a nonbinary stand-up comic in the present day.” “My friend Gregg Araki, he’s a filmmaker, said to me, ‘How does it feel to have created the most polarizing character in all 5,000 shows that are on TV?’” When King asked him to clarify, Araki cited outrageous characters currently on television such as “Vikings who are drinking children’s blood” and so on. Months later, King still can’t believe the reaction. For gay Che haters, the call was coming from inside the house. When those detractors included LGBTQ viewers, the idea of Che exposed that perhaps those people simply wanted more palatable representation: more white, and more cisgender. Whether those viewers were turned off by Che’s brash persona or by the show’s semi-cringe approach to Che’s comedy - or because Miranda’s obsession with Che made a fool of the beloved character Steve (David Eigenberg) - Che became an object of cruel mockery, and the progenitor of a million “Hey, it’s Che Diaz” memes and jokes about their Netflix “comedy concert,” as Miranda nerdily called it. But to some old-school “Sex and the City” viewers, Che was a bridge too far in the show’s attempt to be more inclusive by adding characters of color to the core friend group of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis). Ramírez’s personal evolution has taken place largely in public after they came to prominence by winning a Tony in 2005 for “Spamalot,” and then co-starring on “Grey’s Anatomy” for 10 seasons, and their casting on the iconic television franchise is unquestionably a leap forward in representation.Īnd Che certainly had their fans, who appreciated Ramírez’s performance, and understood what King and “And Just Like That …” were doing with the character. The character served as a Rorschach test for viewers. I want to show more of Che rather than less of Che. “I want to show the dimension of Che that people didn’t see, for whatever reason - because they were blinded, out of fear or terror. “One of my burning passions about Season 2 is Che,” he says. King himself is effusive when he speaks about Ramírez - and about Che.