Yara Shahidi Opens up About a Future Beyond Acting
At 18-years-old, Yara Shahidi has had a wildly successful acting career, but there’s more written in the cards for the future of this ambitious star.
In The Hollywood Reporter‘s August 2018 issue, which Shahidi is on the cover of, the young actress talks transitioning to college, misconceptions of Gen Z, and changing the future of politics.
The Black-ish actress, whose family stresses that acting “is what we do, it’s not who we are,” has a “dream of dreams,” of one day “creat[ing] some form of alternate curriculum that is inclusive of all people;” but first on the agenda is college.
Shahidi will be attending Harvard in the fall and will have to find a balance between juggling her course load with filming Grown-ish, but believes despite Zoey Johnson’s Adderall consumption and complicated love life, the show has helped prepare her for her own college experience.
Aside from acting, Shahidi has a passion for activism that grew from the 2016 election.
Her dedication to political engagement and representation is surprising to those that don’t know her, but Shahidi explains there’s more to Gen Z than people give them credit for.
“The thing people don’t fully understand about my generation is just how multifaceted we are,” she said. “Oftentimes, people like to oversimplify what [we] believe in or do, whether that’s, ‘Oh, you’re on your phones all the time,’ or, ‘Oh, you’re very self-centered,’ but what I’ve seen from my peers is that we’re socially engaged and curious about the world.”
