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Mayim Bialik opens up about #Cat2Vet campaign, and digital age (Includes interview)

Actress and cat lover Mayim Bialik (who has three cats herself), teamed up with veterinarian and reality television star Dr. Diarra Blue and kitten rescuer Hannah Shaw (“Kitten Lady” online series). They all joined the movement to help raise awareness about this important issue with a new public service announcement that emphasizes the need for cats to visit their veterinarian on a regular basis. “I am encouraging people to take their cat to the vet. It’s a hard job but somebody has to do it,” she said with a sweet laugh. “In general, people assume that cats don’t necessarily need as much care but it’s not true.”

She shared that August 22 is the National Bring Your Cat to the Vet Day. “You can take your cat to the vet anytime, especially during quarantine,” she said. “As an owner of three cats, one of them hates going to the vet, so I totally get it.”

There are in excess of 90 million cats in America yet more than half of the cats do not receive a yearly veterinary exam. In order to improve healthcare for cats in the United States, Royal Canin, a global leader in cat nutrition, launched its annual “Take Your Cat to the Vet” (#Cat2Vet) campaign. “Royal Canin has been really helpful in getting our message out there, which is as important as ever,” she said.

“I keep getting asked a lot about taking care of kids during the quarantine, and the fact is that my cats are an extended part of my family. Just like I do preventative care for myself and my kids, my cats needs that too,” she said.

The #Cat2Vet campaign is done in partnership with celebrity and pet industry advocates including Banfield Pet Hospital, Chewy and PetSmart. Its mission is to encourage pet owners to schedule regular veterinary checkups for their feline companions.

Cat owners tend to have deep bonds with their cats and are curious about ways to better care for their cats. A survey done this year, commissioned by Royal Canin, shared the following statistics: 75 percent of cat owners stated that they couldn’t have gone through this quarantine without their cats, 66 percent of cat owners learned something new about their pets, 86 percent of them want to take better care of their pets because their cats take care of the owners, and finally, 66 percent plan to change how they care for the cats after the Coronavirus pandemic.

She has a new series in the works called “Call Me Kat.” “We haven’t started filming yet, but I am doing that with Jim Parsons. He and I are producing it. We just started rehearsing, and depending on quarantine, we will see when we can start filming,” she said.

“During this quarantine, I wrote a pilot. It was written long-distance because of the quarantine. That was unbelievably exciting,” she shared.

For her role as neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler in the hit CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, she earned a total of four Primetime Emmy nominations. “The Emmy nominations are an industry standard. It’s a tremendous honor literally to even be considered to be nominated,” she said. “While it’s definitely an honor to be nominated, of course, it’s hard not to win. I like to win everything since I am a highly competitive person. The TV industry has gotten very crowded in a way it never was before, so it has been a real honor. I’ve won two Critics Choice Awards, and I’ve been nominated for a SAG award but the Emmy is a very big deal and maybe one day I will get a chance again.”

“Life after The Big Bang Theory has been good,” she admitted. “Obviously, I was on that show for 10 years, so it has definitely been a huge shift in life to not go there every day and to see all the people that I was friendly with. Life is different but I got to spend time with my kids and a lot of time to work on other projects. I’m starting a podcast and it has been very busy.”

On the title of the current chapter of her life, she said, “Breakdown.” “Bialik Breakdown feels about right,” she said.

Regarding her daily motivations, she said, “I am a religious person. I am a person of faith so I am motivated by the opportunity to be grateful for my existence, and getting to do work that I believe is holy, in an way you can describe that. Sometimes, comedy can feel holy or other times, it can feel fun and that’s important in its own way. I am motivated by my desire to figure out why I am on this planet, and to make the world better than I found it.”

She is also hosting the new TBS competition show Celebrity Spin-Off. “I’m working on this show, and it’s a whole new world because of the quarantine,” she said. “It has been fun. Hosting has been a very different skill-set. Since we have been filming during quarantine, all of our celebrities have been Zooming in, so that has had its quarantine challenges due to some tech issues here and there.”

On being an actress in the digital age, she said, “The industry has changed a tremendous amount. The PR machine didn’t exist. It’s a very different world.”

For young and aspiring actors and filmmakers, she encouraged them to “have a good backup plan.” “There are a lot of aspects to creating and being creative that are really important. Also, choose a lifestyle that suits you since that’s also important,” she said.

If she weren’t in acting or neuroscience, she listed “professional organizer” as her alternate career choice. “I have a strong desire to do that and it brings me a tremendous amount of joy,” she said.

To learn more about the #Cat2Vet campaign, check out the Royal Canin website.

For more information on her upcoming Bialik Breakdown podcast, visit its official homepage.

Markos Papadatos
Written By

Markos Papadatos is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for Music News. Papadatos is a Greek-American journalist and educator that has authored over 20,000 original articles over the past 18 years. He has interviewed some of the biggest names in music, entertainment, lifestyle, magic, and sports. He is a 16-time "Best of Long Island" winner, where for three consecutive years (2020, 2021, and 2022), he was honored as the "Best Long Island Personality" in Arts & Entertainment, an honor that has gone to Billy Joel six times.

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