CNN’s Brianna Keilar on coping with DC summers, deployments and the horrors of seaweed

As a kid she had dreams of being a fighter pilot, and now Brianna Keilar is getting ready for takeoff with a new show at CNN. 

Keilar is one of three anchors — alongside Boris Sanchez and Jim Sciutto — taking the helm of “CNN News Central,” the new 1 to 4 p.m. programming block making its debut on the network on April 17. CNN says the show will have the feel of its coverage on special election nights and will serve as the “core hub of the network’s best-in-class newsgathering operation during the day.”

Keilar, who had been on the early bird shift until late last year before the revamped show, “CNN This Morning” was launched, says she digs afternoon anchoring duties: “I really like it, especially as a Washington person, because so much is happening, and it feels like the news is alive and everything’s moving.”

As mom to two young kids — 6-year-old stepson Teddy and 4-year-old son Antonio — with husband Col. Fernando Lujan, Keilar, 42, says the time slot also gives her energy level a boost.

She praises Sanchez as “so sharp” and says she and Sciutto shared a special connection after being paired together — and having little contact with other colleagues — as a safety precaution amid the pandemic. The two bonded over a shared love of a particular soda flavor: “We were like drinking the place out of these Cherry Coke Zeros.”

We wanted to know more about this “Top Gun”-loving, seaweed-averse journalist from Down Under, so we asked her to head into the “Danger Zone” — aka the ITK Q&A.

Hometown: I grew up in Mission Viejo, Calif., from 2 years old on, and I was born in Australia.

College attended: University of California, Berkeley

What did you want to be when you were a kid? I wanted to be a fighter pilot — mid [1980s] I wanted to be a fighter pilot because I saw ‘Top Gun.’

By the time I was in high school, I didn’t realize this, but I actually looked back on some scholarship application… it said that I wanted to be a news anchor. Now I don’t know if I understood what news anchor versus reporter was. By the time I got to college, I was majoring in psychology and mass communications. I was sort of torn between being a psychologist and doing news, and I ended up interning at a television news station and loving it. It was like being struck by lightning, and so that’s what I was going to at least try to do.

Favorite hobby: I really like cooking. And I’m trying to get back into golf, which is something that I’ve done since I was a kid but has fallen by the wayside since I’ve had children. And I think it’s time that I get back out there.

Favorite TV show: “A Spy Among Friends,” and also “Yellowstone.”

What do you like most about D.C.? I think what I like most is that there are a lot of different people here with different political leanings and different interests. I’m married to someone in the military. I think people talk about D.C. being a bubble — and it certainly is, and you can especially get trapped in your bubble within a bubble, whether it’s journalism or it’s being on the Hill — but there are also people with a lot of different backgrounds and interests.

This is a really diverse city. And I love that.

What do you dislike the most about D.C.? The summers. They’re so sweaty and gross, and there are a lot of mosquitoes.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? I’m going to have teenagers, so that’s really the first thing that comes to my mind. And if I’m being honest, that sort of strikes some fear into my heart a little bit.

I hope that I’m still at CNN anchoring and covering stories that I love to cover. And that I’m also covering stories about military families, which is something that I’ve really enjoyed doing, and that CNN has provided a tremendous platform for me to do on cnn.com and also on-air.

I have a fear of: Seaweed wrapping around my foot when I’m swimming in the ocean. It’s an intense fear and it’s lifelong: ‘What is that? Is that seaweed? Is that a fish? Is that Jaws?’

I actually do love the ocean … But weirdly I’m grossed out by very little. I’m here to kill a spider. I’m here to get dirty with my kids. Very little grosses me out, but that for some reason just really does a number on me.

Biggest accomplishment: My biggest accomplishment has been juggling my job in a way that I’m proud of with children and having a spouse who has been deployed multiple times. And doing so while I think telling stories with the sensitivity and directness that they demand.

Most embarrassing moment: I fell off of a mechanical bull on live television once [about 20 years ago as a local news reporter in Yakima, Wash.]

Honestly, the thing about getting older is that my threshold for humiliation has gotten really high and that’s helpful, I think, for doing on-air interviews and also for being the mother of small children.

I’m happiest when: I am hanging out at the beach with my family and reading a book.

Celebrity crush: Keanu Reeves

Something few people know about you: I have fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed when I was 12 or 13. So I’ve learned to live with chronic pain because I’ve had it almost my entire life. In some ways it really sucks, but in other ways, it’s a reminder of the fact that we’re running a marathon and it’s not a sprint.

It affects me a lot, but I’ve also learned how to manage it and I’ve also learned like every bad thing that can happen to you also teaches you a lot of positive things.

Best advice given: When you’re breaking news and sometimes you’re talking to an official who really doesn’t want you to break that news, and they’re sort of doing everything they can to stop you from reporting something, just ask yourself if they’re saying that you’re wrong. Because a lot of times, they won’t be saying you’re wrong, they’ll be saying everything but it.

Wear shoes you can run in.

And go to bed (from my mom.) Everything will be clearer in the morning. And drink more water (from my producer, Margaret.)

—Updated at 11:06 a.m.