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 shade in largely white, company areas like community tv. “That is me and Greta truly, in an actual manner,” Pittman tells POPSUGAR after talking on the 2024 Makers Convention on Feb. 28.

Via 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 targeted 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 on the lookout for methods to imbue your private, genuine perspective, no matter you will have 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 complicated feelings to her characters. “I delight 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 an alternative, she “influences the storytelling” by making certain there’s depth to her characters. “I remind [writers], ‘Let’s be certain that we present the center of this character as an alternative of simply exhibiting she’s a powerful lady.’ That may find yourself being a trope,” she says. She likes to create characters via their “emotional panorama” particularly. “Figuring out what the center of that lady is and having the ability to convey that to the digital camera visually is admittedly 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 targeted on channeling vulnerability, a high quality not usually related to Black ladies on display. “The writers of [‘The Morning Show’] are all the time hoping to replicate again the power and the nimbleness of African American ladies,” she says. “Typically 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 lady in that job, in the identical ways in which you would possibly see a white lady 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 you will need to replicate, particularly on that platform, what it’s to have an African American lady who fully accepts her naturalness, who is not attempting to alter or look totally different, who’s embodying this assemble of Blackness fully, and has determined that she’s going to stay 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 to be like like for a lady of shade to construct a relationship with a white lady who might not know every other WOC. That is particularly impactful in a collection with a lot fanfare and generational recognition.

However whereas she’s capable of begin conversations about her characters in some methods, she additionally acknowledges the challenges that include being a Black lady within the performing 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 business, she believes it is since reverted again to the established order.

“Individuals 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 need to have these conversations.”

As with ladies of shade in any area, she’d wish to solely deal with the job at hand: performing. “I might love to enter an expertise the place the one factor that I am known as to do is to convey the complete breadth of my craft and never need to concern myself with the rest,” she says. However, as she reminds us, that is the truth 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 will take time for the business 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 like portraying these characters is as a result of they’ve their hand out for connection; they’re reflecting again to the tradition. There’s house for all of us. Actually in my profession, as a mom, as a human being, that’s the manner I’m on the planet.”

She’s additionally looking forward to change. “For those who’re an actor or when you’re an artist, you’re an optimist and an activist,” she says. “And when you’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 ladies’s life-style areas. She’s keen about spreading cultural sensitivity via the lenses of life-style, leisure, and elegance.