Yara Shahidi

speaker

333 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 31 Jul

Yara Shahidi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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10% Happier with Dan Harris · When You Don't Know What You Actually Want: How To Say No, When To Say Yes, and The One Question That Cuts Through It | Yara Shahidi · 31 Jul 2026 podcast

My grampy and I would reimagine and act out the entire saga of the Odyssey with my Polly Pocket dolls, as one does at the age of four.

And around the age of five, I asked for every religious book.

I mean, every religious book.

Fast-forwarding to 13, I read my first short story from the formidable James Baldwin, and my life was forever changed.

Needless to say, I was grateful to be surrounded by a community of people that honored my interests.

But as I got older, I began to get confronted by a big question.

Are you sure about that?

Now, this was a question I really could not escape in August of 2018, right as I was embarking on my next adventure.

I was beginning my freshman year at Harvard right as my television show, Grown-ish, began filming season two.

and I was at a crossroads.

Because acting, for me, has been more than a career.

It's given me permission to explore my fantasies.

I feel like I gain another level of empathy every time I step into a different character's shoes.

But my education has been equally as pivotal.

because my education has fulfilled my endless desire to know, to know places, to know the events that have shaped us, the communities that have built us, the obstacles that have tried to stop us, the mistakes that haunt us, but selfishly, to know about myself and my place in the world.

So my two lifelong passions were colliding, and I was being told by academic advisors and entertainment folk alike, although no one on my team, that there was no symbiotic relationship between the two worlds.

I was searching for an and, but I kept getting presented an either-or.

And I almost let those five words, are you sure about that, stop me.

Now, I've graduated from Harvard, and my television show is ending.

And a couple years ago, this really would have terrified me, to leave two spaces that I know so well.

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