‘Just Like That’ star Karen Pitman on rep: ‘I know how important it is to viewers who look like me’

For actress Karen Pittman, self-care equals positive self-talk.

“You know that song on Instagram, ‘Girl, you’re doing well, you’re doing well?’ It’s the song I sing to myself on the treadmill,” she told Yahoo Life laughing.

The performer, currently on Apple TV+’s The Morning Show as producer Mia Jordan and law professor Dr. Nya Wallace’s “Sex and the City” reboot And Just Like That…, said cheering himself up could be one of two things. The difference between a good day and a bad day.

“I was really like, ‘Well done. You did a great job,'” she explained.

Pittman learned the power of self-care from her parents, who she said played an important role in making sure she protected her mental health as well as her physical health.

“Your mind is something you need to take care of and work with. It allows us to say, ‘Hey, I’m not okay,'” explains Pittman. “It’s good to go to the doctor or talk to someone, whether it’s your pastor, a therapist, or whoever you think can help you take care of yourself. I think there are a lot of things parents can do to help their children, especially when Black community, in African-American community. We need to explore how we can foster the idea of ​​sensitive, empathetic people through the mechanisms of taking care of ourselves.”

When Pittman needs her own space, she turns to “spirit and spiritual work.” She has a space in the backyard that is perfect for meditation. However, when she’s on the go, she turns to other recovery methods.

“I’m always driving in Los Angeles, so I’m always listening to podcasts,” she said, citing Gwyneth Paltrow and Oprah Winfrey’s popular podcasts as two of her favorites. “I love a self-help book. I read “Will” by Will Smith, and it was a phenomenal book. I also jumped into a novel at night. But, I’m also a latecomer to the Internet, and I Will go to Zillow and Travel and Leisure to see where I’m going to travel someday. I give my mind time to escape, whether it’s reading a book, a good song, or a podcast. A lot of my daily self-help It’s all about this.”

Although Pittman is a busy actress and producer, she said one of the best pieces of advice she got from another star wasn’t about climbing the Hollywood ladder.

“Francis McDormand and I worked together on a play in New York City, and she had a great piece of advice that was: ‘Don’t worry about getting a career. Live your life. It’s important because you’re very focused , but when you’re really successful, you can look around and realize your life isn’t what you want, even if your career is incredible. You look around and no one is connected to you.”

Pittman recently wrote an emotional tribute to her idol, Sidney Poitier, following her death earlier this year (The Morning Show happens to be on a site in the Sony lot that bears his name. building), she said she was grateful for the opportunity to portray strong black women on screen.

“My goal and duty as an artist is to draw characters where people can see not only themselves but other people,” she explained. “About representation and what it means to see a happy [and] happy but also challenging African American woman – I know how important that is to an audience who looks like me. What I do There is an important aspect of the work. For me, being able to represent these women is very touching and feels like a rare opportunity to express who we are as human beings and where we are culturally.”

She also hopes that her role can help bring people together during these difficult times that separate us physically and mentally.

“Over the past few years, we’ve spent a lot of time on the opposite side of the spectrum,” she noted. “We’ve made sure that someone like Miranda [Cynthia Nixon on And Just Like That…], who made some really embarrassing and cringe-worthy mistakes in her first interaction with Nya, will never end up with her Be friends. There’s so much room we don’t give each other the benefit of the doubt, so it’s hard to extend it to the characters we see. It’s important to me as an actor to show me characters who are still reaching out And they’re still saying, ‘Hey, I’m still here. Can we have coffee? Let’s work on that together. That’s what Mia said at the end of the morning show — she said, ‘If we Stick with it and we can do better, not leave.'”