This story originally appeared in i-D’s The Darker Issue, no. 365, Winter 2021. Order your copy here.
You most likely know Karen Pittman as Mia Jordan, the sharp, self-assured TV producer on Apple TV+’s most chaotic workplace drama, The Morning Show. Mia breezes through the studio halls, her subtly highlighted hair pristine and a coffee cup firmly in the grasp of her perfectly-manicured hand. As one of only a handful of non-white employees at the network, she knows that her position is more vulnerable than most. It’s an understanding that Karen is all too familiar with, one that she came to through similar circumstances in her own industry.
“I have spent a large portion of my career being the only Black woman in a sea — rather an ocean — of white actors,” she said on Instagram earlier this year. “I fight not to be used as ‘production design,’ objectified, stereotyped, tokenized.” Born in Mississippi and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, the actress started landing her first roles in her early 20s, appearing in a number of American drama staples: Law & Order, The Good Wife, House of Cards, Elementary, and more. Karen’s latest character, on And Just Like That the upcoming Sex and the City revival, is Dr Nya Wallace — a Columbia law professor. If you think you’ve noticed a penchant for playing independent and powerful women in the actress, you’d be correct. “Every single time I speak up,” she wrote in her post, “it changes the room.”
Credits
Photography Inez & Vinoodh
Fashion Alastair McKimm
Hair James Pecis at Bryant Artists
Braiding Tashana Miles
Make-up Sam Visser at Forward Artists using Dior
Nail technician Yuko Tsuchihashi at Susan Price NYC using UKA
Lighting director Jodokus Driessen
Digital technician Marc Kroop
Photography assistance Joe Hume
Fashion assistance Madison Matusich, Milton Dixon III and Casey Conrad
Tailor Martin Keehn
Hair assistance Anton Alexander
Make-up assistance Emma Elizabeth
Production Tucker Birbilis, Eva Harte and Michael Dicarlo
Production assistance Max Sniderman and Bryan Cuevas
Casting director Samuel Ellis Scheinman for DMCASTING