

For her role as Zoey Johnson, Yara won the NAACP Image award in 2015 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and the YoungStars Award at the 2017 BET Awards. The comedy series has won multiple categories at the NAACP Image Awards and has been nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards since 2015.

The show is created by Kenya Barris and follows the upper-middle-class African American family as they face personal and sociopolitical issues. She joins Anthony Anderson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Marcus Scribner, Miles Brown, and Marsai Martin as members of the Johnson family. Yara Shahidi’s most iconic role is her acting as eldest daughter Zoey Johnson in the ABC sitcom Black-ish. Yara Shahidi Movies and TV shows: Black-ish (2014-) She also acted in Angelina Jolie’s 2010 action film Salt and played daughter Chloe Johnson in the 2012 family sitcom The First Family. In her first cinematic role, she starred alongside Eddie Murphy in the 2009 comedy film Imagine That where she was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film. Yara began her career at age six, where she starred in various TV commercials for companies like McDonald’s, Ralph Lauren, Target, GapKids, Disney, Guess Kids, and The Children’s Place. How did Yara Shahidi get her start in Hollywood? She is also first cousins with rapper Nas. Yara Shahidi also has two younger siblings, actress and model Sayeed Shahidi and brother Ehsan. Her first name, Yara, means “someone who is close to your heart” in Persian. Her father, Afshin Shahidi, is Iranian, while her mother, Keri Salter Shahidi, is of mixed African American and Native Choctaw heritage. Yara Shahidi was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to her parents, photographer Afshin Shahidi and actress Keri Salter Shahidi. Often labeled as the “ poster child ” for Generation Z, the actress, model, and activist drives her creative vision through multiple projects as she becomes the voice of young Hollywood. At only 21 years old, Yara Shahidi has already made a significant impact in Hollywood.
