Yara Sayeh Shahidi

All About Yara:

Yara began her career as an actress in 2006, but was truly catapulted into the acting scene in 2009 alongside Eddie Murphy in Imagine That. She also played Zoey Johnson in the hit sitcom, Black-ish and stars in her own spinoff, Grown-ish. She has also used her large platform as a catalyst for her activism.

She is very multifaceted and has been in several roles, all very different and in movies with different genres…

Yara feels starting conversations, even though they may be uncomfortable to some, is the way to create change in society. She has opened up spaces for conversations on…

• Black and brown communities
• The LGBTQ+ community
• Intersectionality in the Feminist Movement
• and launched a national initiative called Eighteen x 18, a program meant to excite young people to vote


Interesting Facts:

Tracee Ellis Ross, who plays her mother on Black-ish told Vogue, “If you get Yara talking, she will not stop talking. When she gets comfortable, she gets comfortable.”
Kenya Barris, the Black-ish and Grown-ish series creator, knew almost immediately that Yara was the one for the role of Zoey. He said there was an “effortlessness to her acting that spoke to me.”
Shahidi teamed up with the Young Women’s Leadership Network to launch Yara’s Club, a digital program where young kids can meet online and just talk.
Yara has also two SAG Award nominations for her roles in Black-ish and Grown-ish, but she has won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2015 and then the BET Awards’ YoungStars Award in 2017 and 2018! She’s also been nominated for many more awards for her amazing talent.


Personal Life:

Yara Shahidi currently attends Harvard University where she is furthering her education after graduating from The Dwight School in New York with honors. At Harvard she is double majoring in sociology and African American studies. She takes her studies very seriously, but likes to keep it real on her Instagram.



Captioned: "AM I WRITING THIS PAPER OR IS THIS PAPER WRITING ME?: PART II : THE FINAL (exam) FRONTIER"

She has also made an iconic ‘73 Questions’ video with Vogue where she shares interesting facts about who Yara is when she can just be Yara! Watch that here!