Karen Pittman did not expect Forever to be such a big deal. The actress is still reeling from the success of Mara Brock Akil’s Netflix show about two high-schoolers who fall in love, loosely adapted from Judy Blume’s 1975 novel; she plays Dawn, an overprotective mom torn between pushing her son toward college success and letting him stumble through heartbreaks on his own. “I wanted the opportunity to throw my hat in the ring for what I thought motherhood looks like right now for me,” she says, adding that Forever was the first time her own two children actually watched one of her shows.

You may also recognize Pittman from brief television arcs in The Americans and Yellowstone , her first stint on Broadway in 2014’s Disgraced , and, for Sex and the City fans, from playi

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