Karen Pittman on How Her Black Identity Influences Her Roles

In season three of “The Morning Present,” a race scandal rocks UBA, the published community that serves because the present’s backdrop. The storyline sees Karen Pittman’s Mia and Greta Lee’s Stella strikingly depict the realities of ladies of colour in largely white, company areas like community tv. “That is me and Greta really, in an actual approach,” Pittman tells POPSUGAR after talking on the 2024 Makers Convention on Feb. 28.

By characters like Mia and Nya on “And Simply Like That…,” Pittman brings unbelievable nuance to her portrayal of robust Black ladies who navigate their race of their respective environments, which she opened up about in dialog with “Succession” actor J. Smith-Cameron. The 2 spoke on the three-day summit hosted by Makers, a community-focused media model owned by Yahoo that is centered on accelerating fairness for ladies within the office.

For Pittman, identity-driven storytelling is inherently intentional. “I feel the storytellers and writers are all the time in search of methods to imbue your private, genuine perspective, no matter you’ve gotten been via in your life,” she says. However for the actor and activist, that authenticity is much less about sharing her lived experiences and extra about bringing advanced feelings to her characters. “I satisfaction myself on having characters that do not resemble me as an actor,” she explains. “I do not see any of myself in Mia, and I hope to by no means see any of myself.”

As a substitute, she “influences the storytelling” by making certain there’s depth to her characters. “I remind [writers], ‘Let’s be certain we present the guts of this character as an alternative of simply exhibiting she’s a powerful girl.’ That may find yourself being a trope,” she says. She likes to create characters via their “emotional panorama” specifically. “Realizing what the guts of that girl is and having the ability to convey that to the digital camera visually is basically the place I really feel like the best affect I’ve as an actor in any story. That’s what makes an viewers join.”

With a high-powered, unbiased TV producer like Mia, she’s centered on channeling vulnerability, a top quality not typically related to Black ladies on display screen. “The writers of [‘The Morning Show’] are all the time hoping to replicate again the energy and the nimbleness of African American ladies,” she says. “Generally that may be one-sided, so I am all the time attempting to infuse moments of fragility, softness, tenderness, and suppleness of what it means to be a girl in that job, in the identical ways in which you would possibly see a white girl in these jobs.”

In relation to Nya, Miranda’s professor-turned-friend on “And Simply Like That…,” it was vital to Pittman — and creator Michael Patrick King — that she put on her hair in braids. As she places it, “I feel it is very important replicate, particularly on that platform, what it’s to have an African American girl who utterly accepts her naturalness, who is not attempting to alter or look totally different, who’s embodying this assemble of Blackness utterly, and has determined that she’s going to reside in a spot of affection and training — and to share that intelligence on the present.” Pittman additionally understands that Nya’s friendship with Miranda permits the chance to indicate viewers what it appears like for a girl of colour to construct a relationship with a white girl who could not know every other WOC. That is particularly impactful in a sequence with a lot fanfare and generational reputation.

However whereas she’s in a position to begin conversations about her characters in some methods, she additionally acknowledges the challenges that include being a Black girl within the appearing world. In her dialog with Smith-Cameron, Pittman make clear Hollywood’s cultural reckoning in response to George Floyd’s homicide by police in 2020. Whereas there was an preliminary shift within the trade, she believes it is since reverted again to the established order.

“Persons are forgetful,” she tells POPSUGAR. “Individuals overlook, and as an actor, you do not wish to all the time have your finger on the heart beat of tradition attempting to show them or remind them, ‘Hey, we have to pump some life into this.’ My white colleagues do not should have these conversations.”

As with ladies of colour in any subject, she’d wish to solely give attention to the job at hand: appearing. “I might love to enter an expertise the place the one factor that I am referred to as to do is to convey the complete breadth of my craft and never should concern myself with anything,” she says. However, as she reminds us, that is the fact for any othered individual in our society.

As Pittman underscored in her dialog with Smith-Cameron, “the system is damaged,” and he or she is aware of it’s going to take time for the trade to progress. However what she will do is collaborate with allies to advocate for the tales and characters they really feel are vital. “I wish to be a human that builds coalition, that retains widespread floor,” she tells POPSUGAR. “One of many causes I really like portraying these characters is as a result of they’ve their hand out for connection; they’re reflecting again to the tradition. There may be house for all of us. Actually in my profession, as a mom, as a human being, that’s the approach I’m on the earth.”

She’s additionally eager for change. “In the event you’re an actor or if you happen to’re an artist, you’re an optimist and an activist,” she says. “And if you happen to’re an activist or an optimist, you consider that humanity can do one thing totally different.”

Yerin Kim is the options editor at POPSUGAR, the place she helps form the imaginative and prescient for particular options and packages throughout the community. A graduate of Syracuse College’s Newhouse Faculty, she has over 5 years of expertise within the popular culture and girls’s way of life areas. She’s keen about spreading cultural sensitivity via the lenses of way of life, leisure, and elegance.