The moment the Zoom call ended with our cover star Yara Shahidi the first thought that popped into my head was, ‘if this 23-year-old woman represents Gen Z then there is definitely hope for the future.’ In fact, if I am being totally honest, that notion was actually more like a running mantra playing on repeat in my mind over our entire hour-long conversation. I listened to Yara speak eloquently and thoughtfully about everything from the transformative power of fashion and her upcoming role as Tinker Bell in the film Peter Pan & Wendy to her plans now that she has graduated from Harvard and even the continuing protests taking place in Iran, her father’s birthplace.
It didn’t matter where the conversation naturally flowed, nothing was off-limits. And more importantly everything Yara said was heartfelt and as far away from a canned ‘media trained’ answer as a Hollywood star – who has quite literally grown up in the business – could get. I was speaking with Yara, unfiltered and honest. A self-assured young woman who is also self-aware enough to know she doesn’t have all the answers but is open – no, excited – to learn.
We kick things off by talking about fashion as she was a few minutes late to the call because she was doing a final fitting with a team from Dior for her upcoming trip to Mumbai, India to attend one of the brand’s ‘destination’ runway shows. “I have to credit my parents in that they always gave me a lot of freedom to go through each of my fashion phases,” recounts Yara. “That ranged from only ever wearing skirts and high tops, to a very academic look. I mean, I wore uniforms of schools that I didn’t go to because I loved the plaid skirt, high socks look! I think fashion has always been, even in my quirkiest of phases, a great form of self-expression.”
Yara has been the face and global brand ambassador of Dior Beauty since 2021. But it’s not the only marquee luxury house that is keen to collaborate with the highly regarded actor. Cartier often turns to her when they want to highlight a new women’s initiative they are working on. While Tommy Hilfiger just announced that Yara will be a spokesperson and judge for its New Legacy Challenge 2.0 design competition.
And other companies want Yara to become a part of their family as well. The actor confirms (without naming names) that later this year there are at least a couple of big announcements in the works with two brands, one based in the United States and one in Europe, that will see her linked even more closely to the luxury space.
Speaking of family, this issue marks the third time that the actor has graced the cover of Harper’s Bazaar Arabia since its launch. And for Yara, the magazine has become something of a touchstone that she can revisit like a time capsule. “It has been one of the only places where I literally have an archive of what I was thinking and feeling about the world from before I went to school, while I was in the thick of it – we were in the pandemic and facing so many shifts – to now being out of [school]. I love that each cover has truly captured a very genuine part of who I am and has somehow pointed to where I am going,” she reflects. “Very rarely do I get to talk so openly about how being bicultural has influenced me in so many ways. To be speaking to a platform that talks to people that are of my many communities, and is of my community, is really rare and really exciting,” she adds.
For this issue, Yara once again wanted to try something new, something pared back and architectural. A direction that would challenge how people who have watched her grow up in the role of Zoey Johnson (a character she has played since she was 14 years old) on the back-to-back TV series Black-ish and Grown-ish perceive her. “When I approach fashion now, the history nerd in me knows the history of fashion and the political statements that either create or suppress the image that lasts in people’s minds. Then the lover of clothes in me appreciates the creativity and its art form. I put it in the same vein as a painting or any other visual art,” she notes.
When it comes to fashion as costume, one look that has lived rent-free in the minds of multiple generations is Tinker Bell’s bright green strapless mini dress. It’s a look Yara will now forever be associated with when, later this month, the world sees her take up the Tinker Bell mantle in the new film Peter Pan & Wendy. When confronted with the concept that little girls will soon be idolising her and hugging Tinker Bell dolls that look like her to their chests, the actor still seems not to fully grasp the ripple effect impact she will have. Particularly as she did most of her scenes in a garage (far away from the rest of the cast shooting on location) while wearing workout gear with balls covering her head for the CGI motion capture cameras. In fact, she has only worn the iconic costume on a handful of occasions. “It’s so surreal,” she admits. “I don’t know if I have quite wrapped my head around it.”
When the movie drops on April 28th on Disney+ it will be the latest example of the company’s drive to overhaul its classics so that they better reflect the multicultural world we live in. There are other notable recent fairy tale reimaginings too. These include the Black and Filipina musician H.E.R playing the role of Belle on television last December in the live musical performance of Beauty and the Beast. The upcoming Disney film The Little Mermaid, with the Black singer Halle Bailey for the lead role – a part originally drawn as a Caucasian redhead in the 1989 animated musical feature. And then there is next year’s live-action Snow White starring Rachel Zegler, who is of Colombian and Polish descent, as the titular character.
Much ink has been spilt over the “reimagining” of these classic fairy tales to make them more representative and inclusive. But for Yara, they are just an organic continuation of the stories she read when she was a child. “I grew up loving fairy tales from around the world,” she says. “There was a Cinderella story literally called The Persian Cinderella that was altered so she had to eat a pomegranate instead of her typical feast with these really beautiful illustrations in it. I remember that being my favourite thing to read. There were also African folktales like Anansi the Spider, which I think many kids grew up with and I also loved.”
Yara’s heritage and rich cultural traditions on both sides of her family have long been an important aspect of her life. Born in Minnesota, she comes from a very close-knit family grounded by her mother Keri Salter Shahidi, who is Black and a successful entrepreneur, and her father Afshin Shahidi, who is Iranian and a renowned photographer that, notably, was Prince’s personal photographer, and confidante.
Clash de Cartier Earrings in Rose Gold, Double-Row Model; Clash de Cartier Ring in Rose Gold, Double-Row Model; Clash de Cartier Ring in Rose Gold, XL Model; Juste un Clou Ring in Rose Gold, POA, all Cartier. Dress; Hat, POA, both Harris Reed
“I love growing up between two cultures; it gives me a global sense of the world – and it makes me care about the world,” says Yara. “I think being Iranian and being Black opened the door to cultures around me; it gives me a sense of connectivity and curiosity. At the same time, growing up bicultural has taken on such different meanings for me. When I was younger it was really a matter of history and food. Now being in my 20s – there’s an associated political and social identity, which has made it much more complicated. This has made me more intentional when expressing my heritage,” she reflects.
Yara recounts how when she was younger, growing up in the social media age, she felt a need to use her fame (she has over 8 million followers on Instagram alone) to share her thoughts and opinions on all the hot-button current events she felt passionate about – in the heat of the moment. She saw her online voice as an extension of the conversations she was having at home with her friends and family. But she discovered over time that those instant, from the gut, responses didn’t allow room for her to add to the conversation in a more considered and educated way.
“For someone that had felt so certain for so long, the world was getting more complicated,” Yara shares. “The pandemic also highlighted that we each have different needs and abilities when standing up for something. It is not a one-size-fits-all and we must get comfortable being uncomfortable,” she says.
Yara credits, in part, her four years at Harvard, where she majored in Interdisciplinary Sociology and African American Studies, in helping her to realise that people, including herself, need to continue to educate themselves and learn to speak from a place of knowledge, not just reaction. “Learning is my safe space and, as a perpetual nerd my whole life, it has always been the place I feel most comfortable,” she confides. “I live by the mindset that the world seems really scary if you think you know everything about it. I take comfort in the knowledge that there’s so much more to learn or that maybe it’s just that we haven’t yet found a solution to something. This is why what we are currently going through culturally are the ebbs and flows of necessary experimentation,” she adds.
That being said the actor is very clear about her position when it comes to the ongoing protests in Iran that were originally sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s so-called morality police last September and have grown into a more overarching demand for women’s rights in the country. “I sit in awe and am impressed by… and want to support… how women have defined this movement,” Yara says with conviction in her voice.
As the eldest of three siblings (she has two younger brothers), Yara is your typical firstborn overachiever. Well, maybe not exactly typical. She did attend Harvard full-time while simultaneously filming her series Grown-ish, racking up the miles she flew back and forth every week between the east coast and the west coast to honour both her love of storytelling and education. And over the course of those four years, she discovered that there was a considerable amount of overlap between her two passions.
“As specific as my concentration sounds [she studied social studies and black political thought under new colonialism] it weirdly connected to my world in many unexpected ways. As someone who is in television and acting I didn’t realise that it’s all about storytelling, and ultimately who controls the narrative,” she clarifies.
If working and going to school concurrently wasn’t enough, Yara also decided it was high time to start her own production company. So three years ago, in partnership with her mother, she launched 7th Sun Productions and signed a deal with ABC to create content for the television network. “I find that when you are Black or brown, the media goes backwards because they try to make characters universal and find niches that everyone can relate to versus exploring what makes a character so specific. What makes the character only exist right here right now, in this community?” explains Yara about the direction she wants her production company to explore.
And to that point, one of the upcoming projects she is backing is a new drama series based on Cole Brown’s memoir Greyboy: Finding Blackness in a White World, which deals with the author’s experience growing up Black in a predominantly all-white environment.
Now that Yara has graduated from Harvard (wearing a chic Dior look while accepting her diploma) she finds, for the first time in as long as she can remember, that she has a bit of breathing room to stretch as an actor. She would love to try her hand at more dramatic roles (both Yara and her mother are British television fanatics). And she wants to put it out there that she loves the quirkiness of the White Lotus series, in case its writer, director and producer Mike White might happen upon this article.
But as our conversation comes to a close Yara’s expansive worldview once again surprises. As someone who famously had Michelle Obama write her a letter of recommendation when she applied to Harvard and also has Oprah Winfrey telling anyone who will listen that she could be the President of the United States if she wanted to, Yara clearly has quite a few powerful supporters. So who, at this critical juncture in her life, would she like to have as her mentor, to guide her and advise her?
“This is going to sound so random,” preps Yara before she proclaims, “André 3000!” Why? It has to do with the artist’s multidisciplinary creativity. “I know the business of creativity really well,” explains Yara. “But it’s been an interesting phase of life trying to figure out how to honour the ideas. Even if there’s no show that comes out of it, no campaign that emerges from it, but just how to have a creative practice outside of the business of being creative. And for me, he is someone that has a really interesting way of prioritising creative thoughts and then figuring out what the business platform is later.”
It seems like the actor is entering her age of creative enlightenment. We will just have to wait and see if it will spark a larger paradigm shift in the global discourse. Now, after getting to know Yara, I wouldn’t put it past her.
Photography: Greg Swales. Styling: Jason Bolden. Editor in Chief: Olivia Phillips. Art Director: Oscar Yáñez. U.S. Producer: Alexey Galetskiy at AGPNYC. HBA Producer: Steff Hawker. Make-Up: Emily Cheng at The Wall Group. Hair: SherriAnn Cole. Digital Technician: Amanda Yanez. Tailor: Erin Castile. Lighting Tech: Yolanda Leaney and Juliet Lambert. Styling Assistant: John Mumblo
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s April 2022 issue.
