When you are in the public eye as a person of color, you are given very little room to mess up.
Yara Shahidi
I know, ultimately, I want to help effect change; otherwise, I would look at myself in the mirror every day and think, 'What in the world am I doing with my life?'
Being homeschooled for half of my life allowed me to choose my own curriculum and find things I really enjoy, and that's kind of inspired me. I've always been intrigued in or interested in the topics I've been covering.
When you're a part of any protected class, whether it is being a woman, a person of color, a part of the LGBTQ community, or an immigrant, we're expected to get everything right and be the embodiment of perfection when it is not expected of other people.
If you look at the history of art and fashion, it's always been political. It's always been pushing boundaries.
I feel comfortable putting my political stances out there without feeling as though I am filling some sort of quota. I don't have a wokeness quota for the day.
Personally, I love denim... denim pants, a shirt, denim jacket - I'm good.
I am just a history nerd.
My mama is African American and from Wisconsin. My baba was born in Iran. My parents have stressed the idea of creating your own path, and creating your own identity is part of that. That's why embracing these two cultures is important to me.
When you're biracial, you can feel like you're fully neither, not fully both. But I won't strip away my heritage for anyone's comfort.
The more you learn about someone, how could you not want to protect them and their rights? The more you learn about a culture or a certain identity, it's hard to not feel empathy.
For me, personally, I'm usually not on my phone that much. I prefer listening to old radio shows and watching foreign films than tweeting.
I've always loved watches. It's been the one thing that I've asked for, whether it was every Christmas or a birthday.
I like to think I know a lot, but I don't. I'm motivated to learn more.
Fortunately I can say that social media has treated me pretty well. I've been exempt from a lot of the mean comments.
One thing I've always been concerned about is the objectification of women in ads, and that's one thing where I was like, 'Well, if I become a part of advertising, I could change that.'
I've always struggled with Hollywood feeling trivial. Red carpets aren't worth it.
Gender is a spectrum.
One thing that used to worry me is the fact that it seemed like Harvard was this big scary thing where I would have to spend all my time studying just to get in. But getting to go to both campuses of Harvard and Oxford and getting to meet some of the professors was absolutely amazing.
I have the support of my parents and my teachers. They made it very possible for me to go to a school that is open and supportive of me being gone at times and pursuing acting. But school always comes first for me.
I'm louder and bigger with my curls. There's power in that. Also, straight hair is kind of annoying. It gets caught in my collar.
What modeling taught me at a young age was how to say 'no,' which is something girls - we're not always good at saying 'no.' We want to be nice, and then we forget to look out for ourselves.
I've been shy twice. Once when I saw Matthew Bomer and once when I saw Adam Levine. I couldn't say anything, literally.
L.A. is great, but it's a completely different beast. I go back to Minnesota, and I borrow a bike from my neighbor and go around Lake Harriet saying 'Hi' to people. Some of that is missing in L.A.
Fashion is one of those places in which, when you're wearing something that feels like a representation of you, it does create, in a matter of speaking, a space for you to exist. Even if it's just in a two-inch radius of where you are. It's a walking, personalized area in which you can live.
When we moved to L.A., I started going out for more commercials, and then one day they emailed me a movie script. The first thing I said was, 'No way. I love commercials.'
'First Family' on the CW is about the president and his family living in the White House.
I really love hip hop. My cousin Nas came out with an album 'Life Is Good,' and I love that album, but I also love Maroon 5.
I was in Minnesota, where I was born, and I did print ads and commercials. And that was always cool 'cause when you're little, you can only work two hours a day, and it changes.
My friends always laugh because I'm the kind of person who bought the Brooks Brothers school skirt, even though it's not my school's uniform skirt, but just because I liked it. I'm a knee-high socks kind of person.
I have so many pairs of oxfords; it's ridiculous. It started because at my school you have to wear oxfords for our uniform, but after I got my first pair, I realized they were really comfortable, so they became my regular walking shoes, too.
At Harvard, I got to meet and have dinner with Jamaica Kincaid. Just to have conversations with professors was absolutely amazing.
Never jeopardize who you are for a role. Now, I'm not saying you should never change for a role, because the fun of being different characters is adapting different nuances and different parts of the character, but never jeopardize your moral compass or anything like that to have a role.
Scenes change all the time. Scenes will change while you're shooting them, and you just have to roll with it 'cause that's what makes it funny. It's not being stuck in your character and how you're gonna do something, but to react to other people and to really have a real-life conversation.
I go on and off home-school and regular school, but the kids don't treat me any differently because they've all known me forever.
I really love acting, but I also really want to be a historian, so it's really confusing.
I am all about comfort and whatever comes along with comfort. I wear a lot of sweats. But I'm also very preppy naturally.
Having life experiences outside of acting is something my family has always made sure happens.
Quite honestly, I'm the kind of person to get my feelings hurt over something somebody said on Twitter.
Personally, getting into college was a big deal because I realized it's probably one of the only things I've fully planned. The rest of my life has been, for the most part, a nice little happy accident. I'm glad that it happened this way, but it's nonetheless unintentional.
On a personal level, I think dressing is such a form of expression, and when you do events, it's important to feel as though you are authentically yourself.
Maintaining a sense of your personality grounds you in your space. I try and just make what I wear a reflection of how I feel at that moment, at that particular place in time.
There have been moments when I was on a modeling job, and it was the most fantastic thing in the world. And there have been moments where I've realized, 'Okay, I'm ten years old, and I've spent the past six hours outside in the rain.' It taught me how to be specific about what kinds of projects I wanted to do and what kind of work I wanted to do.
I remember my first actual intense breakout was when I was 13, and I no clue what to do because I hadn't dealt with anything in that large of a scale ever before.
I'm double majoring in social studies - which is sociology, anthropology, economics, and philosophy - and African-American studies.
