Yara Shahidi

Early life

Shahidi was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a mother, Keri Salter Shahidi, of African-American and Choctaw descent, and an Iranian-American father, Afshin Shahidi, a photographer. The family moved to California for Afshin's work, when Yara was 4. She is the older sister of child actor and model Sayeed Shahidi, and they have a younger brother, Ehsan. The rapper Nas is their cousin. Keri Shahidi said the name Yara translates to "someone who is capable to do something, or someone is so strong and clever to do something hard" in Persian.

On June 6, 2017, Shahidi announced that she will attend Harvard University.

Career

She began her career when she was 6 years old, appearing in television and print advertisements for companies such as McDonald's, Ralph Lauren, Target, GapKids, Disney, Guess Kids and The Children's Place. She frequently worked with her mother and younger brother in various print and broadcast campaigns.

Shahidi made her cinematic debut in 2009, starring opposite Eddie Murphy in Paramount Pictures' Imagine That, for which she received a Young Artist Award nomination for the best performance in a feature film category. In 2012, she played Chloe Johnson, the daughter of President William Johnson, in the TV series The First Family.

In September 2014, Shahidi starred in ABC's prime-time comedy Black-ish as 14-year-old Zoey Johnson. In December 2014 she won an NAACP Image Award in the category of 'Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy'.

In 2016, she signed to model with New York's Women Management modeling agency, in hopes of providing a platform to see more women of color in diverse roles.

ABC announced in 2017 that Shahidi would be headlining a Black-ish spinoff, Grown-ish on its sister network Freeform set to premiere in early 2018.