Awards Daily talks to The Morning Show‘s Karen Pittman about Mia Jordan’s intimacy post-Mitch Kessler and how her character navigates being a Black woman presenting the news.
If there’s one thing Karen Pittman’s characters should stay away from, it’s dudes named Andre.
First, her And Just Like That… character spends most of Season 2 trying to get over ex Andre Rashad and then in Season 3 of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, Mia Jordan frets over the fate of photojournalist boyfriend Andre (Clive Standen), who’s stationed in Ukraine.
“Right?” says Pittman. “Isn’t that crazy? I decided that was the metaverse talking about my characters. There’s a core element, and no matter the universe I’m in, it’s Andre.”
During this past season on the Apple TV+ series, Pittman’s Mia enjoys a well-deserved romance, especially after all of the shit she went through with Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) in the first two seasons.
“It was so important to me. When the writers and showrunner Charlotte Stoudt came to me, I was like, yes, let’s go in this direction. It was really about seeing where she is emotionally. In Seasons 1 and 2, she had an emotional landscape we had not yet traversed. There was something there for us to get at. She has so much heart on The Morning Show.”
In the Episode 5’s “Love Island,” audiences learn how Mia spent the pandemic: having sex and dancing around her apartment with Andre (not a bad deal).
“I pitched that scene of Mia dancing. We’ve seen characters sing on The Morning Show. I can sing, but I don’t know if Mia is a singer. She’s more of a dancer. He’s also a great dancer.”
Pittman says if you weren’t in a relationship during COVID, you were probably in a situationship, which is exactly what Mia and Andre are.
“When we’re introduced to Andre, Mia comes home and takes off a layer. She removes her mask, coat, then dress, and she’s in the bed. She’s the ultimate lone wolf, especially after Mitch Kessler. It was important for us to explore intimacy absent of Mitch. I don’t know if Mia has the capacity to give full time to a relationship though, which is why Andre reacts the way he does when he finds out she had been with Mitch. Andre leaving was him projecting this idea that he’s not hers and she’s not his.”
While “Love Island” touches on the early months of the pandemic, it also covers another significant moment from 2020, that of the murder of George Floyd. Pittman says the effect this story had on Mia Jordan was something she wanted to make sure the show shared.
“She was a Black woman having to present this to the world. I was working on something with my son, an essay on George Floyd, so we had to go back and look at the words he said before he died. I watched the video a dozen times, him calling out for his mother. The Morning Show had a lot of conversations about how to include that moment. It’s a show that’s meant to be entertaining, but what you also want to do is explore topics that reflect where we are.”
When UBA gets hacked and racist emails from Sybil (Holland Taylor) leak, something Mia struggles with is how to be there for another Black woman, Chris Hunter (Nicole Beharie), while also wearing her producer’s cap.
“With The Morning Show, she has to keep the show going. There is no one person or thing more important than the show. But I also think it is very true for Mia. As a Black woman, she wants to do well and prove she can do the job. You have to give the news to the people. I do try to keep her as close as what it means to be a TV producer.”
Another character with “the show must go on” energy is Stella, played by Greta Lee, whom Pittman says has a similar career trajectory as her, with both in supporting roles looking to break out.
“It’s always a joy to work with her and see her on set. Being able to use her in service to my story arc and for her to use me was very special.”
Pittman points to Episode 7’s “Strict Scrutiny” as having one of her favorite moments of the entire season, when Stella, who’s vying for a higher position within the company under Paul Marks (Jon Hamm), asks Mia, “Do you think things could ever be different around here?”
“It was an important moment for Stella and Mia and the friendship they were building. It was also meaningful that it was a Korean American and an African American having this discussion about bettering their circumstances. We don’t talk enough about how women lead differently than men. That scene was a microcosm of what would it be like if an African American and a Korean American led a network? I’m hoping we’ll see more of that in Season 4.”
All episodes of The Morning Show are streaming on Apple TV+.
