Playing with pixie dust? That’d be a hard-yes.
Kanya Iwana
Shahidi is no longer on Twitter, so it was easy to tune out the predictable, often-prejudiced online noise about the film’s color-conscious casting. “Black Tinkerbell, Black Little Mermaid, Black Cinderella, Brown Snow White. The blackwashing of White culture continues,” one person tweeted.
What wasn’t as predictable was the growing sentiment that casting a Black Tinker Bell wasn’t doing enough to move the diversity needle. “So instead of giving [people of color] their own movies…they decided to just make white characters black,” tweeted another.
Both critiques made headlines, butneither made it into Shahidi’s headspace. “I think what really spoke to me is the fact that the entire Disney team was committed to doing more than just swapping out ethnicities,” she says, “It’s about telling a story that feels reflective of the times that we’re in. I think every change was extremely intentional.”
For Shahidi, being “intentional” creates real-life magic. It’s a word she brings up a lot and no doubt one of the secrets to her success in Hollywood.
Born in Minneapolis to mom Keri, an actress, and dad Afshin, an Iranian-born American photographer who documented Prince’s career, Shahidi has always been cultured, gifted and grounded. The family, which came to include her younger brothers Sayeed and Ehsan, relocated to California when she was 4. Five years later, she made her big-screen debut playing Eddie Murphy’s daughter in 2009’sImagine That.
The impact was there, too. “The conversations on the show were so in alignment with the conversations we were having in our household, of growing up as a young Black kid and all the hilarity and specific pressures that come with that.”
Black-ishended its successful eight-season run last April, but four years before that, Shahidi got the opportunity to reprise her role on Freeform’sGrown-ish, concurrently playing the young-adult version of Zoey. The move brought her more than just the top spot on the call sheet. “Stepping intoGrown-ishwas a big leap because I was valued as a producer on that set,” says Shahidi, crediting-ishworld creator Kenya Barris with giving her that position.
For his part, Barris gives her the credit right back. “Yara earned it. She has been my partner onGrown-ishfrom day one,” he tells PEOPLE, adding that her work ethic is unparalleled. “Obviously being ridiculously talented and unfairly smart doesn’t hurt either, but she is truly hardworking beyond compare … There’s a reason I call her ‘McMogul:' She’s a force and I don’t think there is anything she can’t do.”
“That was one of the first productions that I was really handling solo,” she says of going it alone without her business partner mom. It all went well, but she says they’re better together: “The reason why Mommy as my business partner makes so much sense is that we’re in this industry for the same reason—trying to discover where impact can exist, and where the most fun can be had.”
Harvard presented an opportunity to make an impact and have fun. Despite her booming career, taking on the daunting task of pursuing a Bachelor’s degree was indeed a hard-yes for Shahidi—even if others didn’t agree. Back when she was about 16, filmingblack-ishand gearing up to startGrown-ish, she recalls, “I was moving agencies and knew I was going to be applying to schools at the end of the year. One of the questions we asked potential agents was like, ‘Full transparency, I plan on going to school. What do you all do with young actors that have other things happening?’”
Shahidi, who’s always excelled academically, says she wasn’t raised to think so narrowly about her career—or her prospects: “My parents were very intentional, especially when I was that young, of saying ‘Acting is something you do, but it’s not who you are.’”
It’s why she’s never thought of herself as a child star. “I’m pretty authentic about who I am in the world,” she continues. “It’s not a Hannah Montana-Miley Cyrus double life situation.” That strong sense of self is also why, after receiving a letter of recommendation from former First Lady Michelle Obama (no, she never got to read it), she high-tailed it from Hollywood to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“I was in Social Studies and African-American Studies working under professors I really admired,”she says of life at Harvard. Still, even for a lifelong overachiever,the dueling demands of a red-hot career and a full course load were taxing.
“I remember beforethe Met Gala in 2021I had a class on the Frankfurt School of thought,” she says. “I had 400 pages to read so I was getting through that, hopped on a flight to the Met, was back in my car at 4:00 a.m. going to my plane to get back to school on time for class.”
Here’s another scene from her real-lifeGrown-ishcollege days: “I was taking Old English as my language,” she says. “I was stressed about my exam, like, ‘This grammar doesn’t make sense!’” Again, there were work obligations in New York. “I went to class, flew to the event, flew back to go to office hours, then flew back to the event. I was just stressed.”
Enter Super Dad. “As I’m talking to my parents, my father had booked a flight and brought soup from home to my school to ensure that I was well-fed and cared for,” she says.
Those are the moments that mean the most to Shahidi. “As rational as I am, I can get pretty irrational in terms of what I expect of myself,” she says. “It takes other people to be like, Slow down, friend.” At Harvard, on top of everything else, she’d placed intense expectations on her social life.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t experience immense amounts of FOMO,” she says of her perpetual “fear of missing out,” which would kick in after she jetted back to school from whatever amazing work experience had called her away. “I’d then get to campus and go to whatever event was available,” she says. “I realized I kept trying to fit myself into a space I didn’t feel like I actually enjoyed. I’ve never been a party kind of girl. College really challenged me to create more fulfilling moments.”
Back in January, Shahidi told Drew Barrymore that she’d recently ended a three-year relationship and was taking a break from dating. Given the timeline, that long romance would have been a part of her college juggling act, but she doesn’t offer up any details. “I’ve been intentional about curating a private life that folks don’t need to know about,” she says with a smile.
However, she has no problem sharing what pursuing an education meant to her personally and professionally.
“I think it was such a necessary balance to my life,” says Shahidi,who graduated last May. “The idea of having an acting world and an academic world—one gave the other meaning. To be able to say, ‘I’m studying Black political thought under Neocolonialism,’ and embrace how specific that is, allowed me to look at my work with new ways to find meaning in it.”
The stark, almost-jarring dichotomy of those two experiences is not lost on Shahidi. “We operate in a world where we’ll have these crazy red carpets, which I love, but at the same time there will be these massive world events,” she says. “I’m here wearing [absurdly expensive] clothes, and the world’s kind of burning.’”
She can’t fix it, of course, but deepening her understanding of the world has helped her reconcile the dual aspects of her life. “I really did need school to continue to excavate ways to find purpose in my work, to feel like it was oriented towards some greater mission that was in alignment with what was happening in the world versus feeling like it was happening separately.”
Alignment is another key ingredient in Shahidi’s success. “Every person on my team is attuned towards, ‘How does this line up with Yara’s values?’” she explains.
While she’s aligned herself with multiple causes, including speaking out and marching alongside her peers in protests against police brutality amid the Black Lives Matter, Shahidi prefers to shine light on hardcore, card-carrying activists: “I know people that do that work 24/7, and it’s important for me to make that distinction.”
Even so, she’s proud of the work she has done. “It’s cool that as much as people approach me about roles, people approach me about things that I’ve spoken about and moments that I’ve shown up to,” she says.
Shahidi’s world is an enviable one: supportive family, booming career, world-class education, deep purpose. It’s a beautiful life, though not without its pressures. “For a moment there was a weight I was carrying, feeling like it’s not just if I mess up, but if anybody messed up around me, that would be on me, too,” she admits. “I think that’s just the weight of being Black talent, knowing that that bounce back doesn’t happen as easily as it does for other folks.”
A similar pressure creeped in recently when she instituted her hard-yes-only career philosophy. “There’s so many opportunities that come my way, and I’m grateful for the abundance,” she says, noting that this isn’t the case for many Black and Brown actors. “It feels silly at times to turn away things that are objectively good, but I realized that because I wasn’t turning things down, I was overextending myself. I think the next step for me personally has been about focusing less on the destination, and trying to figure out how to make the journey as enjoyable as possible.”
“Yara is a shining star in this film, literally,” says costar Molony, whose Pan is largely on the receiving end of her pixie dust. “Her quick and often comical reactions are so perfectly timed that you wouldn’t know she was never actually on set with us!”
And she relished getting the time to play. “I think as Black and Brown actors, our work worlds can be so serious,” she says. “There’s a pressure to always make a statement. While I can argue that there’ssomething really powerful about having a Black Tinker Bell,I think this job reminded me how much I enjoy the creativity of what I do, the playfulness and that feeling of growing up.”
With school completed and her-ishyears almost behind her, she’s a full-on adult, with full-on support. “I hit the jackpot,” says Shahidi, who proudly still lives at home. “I’m not being rushed into growing up in any way that doesn’t feel natural to where I’m at right now.” If only her onscreen pal Peter Pan had it so good. He might have stuck around the real world.
CreditsPhotographerKanya IwanaCinematographerEric LongdenHairSherriAnn ColeMakeupKarina Milan/ Dior Beauty/ The Wall GroupManicuristTracy Clemens/Dior Vernis/ Star Touch AgencyStylistJason BoldenWardrobeJewelryCartierBrown DressZimmermannOrange JacketMoschinoWhite DressJacquesmus
Credits
PhotographerKanya IwanaCinematographerEric LongdenHairSherriAnn ColeMakeupKarina Milan/ Dior Beauty/ The Wall GroupManicuristTracy Clemens/Dior Vernis/ Star Touch AgencyStylistJason BoldenWardrobeJewelryCartierBrown DressZimmermannOrange JacketMoschinoWhite DressJacquesmus
PhotographerKanya Iwana
CinematographerEric Longden
HairSherriAnn Cole
MakeupKarina Milan/ Dior Beauty/ The Wall Group
ManicuristTracy Clemens/Dior Vernis/ Star Touch Agency
StylistJason Bolden
Wardrobe
JewelryCartier
Brown DressZimmermann
Orange JacketMoschino
White DressJacquesmus
source: people.com
