Yara Shahidi

"It may look like helicopter parenting, but in Black culture and Iranian culture, that interconnectedness is deeply important"

"For me, optimism is a belief in self"

"Having to pour so much thought into basic survival doesn’t give your brain space to think about, Well, why are we living?"

"It’s overwhelming to think about how broken some of these systems are, how imperfect some of our tools for change are"

"Young people rise to the occasion time and time again, especially when we’re faced with things that are of deep concern to us"

"We need every voice. We need every person"

"On a set, you’re a character. Everything about you is altered. In the tent, the goal is to be yourself."

"Being Black and Iranian is something that even subconsciously plays into what I bring to a role"

"“It’s not about appearances or needing to seem like I’m good at everything"

"Education has always been an integral part of my life"

"My parents instilled this idea that learning is a lifelong adventure, whether that's in a classroom or out in the world"

"It's OK to not have all the answers"

"We cannot rely on the status quo, and we will need to pursue unconventional paths"

"Let yourself be bad at things"

"Not every attempt of mine would be a surefire success"

"We are not here to know, we are here to learn"

"The best learning happens when we give ourselves permission to fumble through something new"

"Finding what fulfills us is the ultimate success"

"It's OK to have multiple passions and to pursue them in various capacities"

"Allow yourself the freedom to explore different fields"

"My 20s has been a jarring experiment in figuring out how to give myself space to be mediocre at things"

"I have an unreasonable belief that I should be good immediately, and that's no way to discover new paths"

"One of the biggest exercises in being curious has been the first step of self-work, of talking to myself about being bad, and allowing myself to be absolutely an amateur with no goals of being advanced at something"

"At the age of 14, I had a mic in my hand and they were asking me about representation and about topics that I think not many 14-year-olds have a chance to discuss"

"My education allowed me to speak more ­confidently about the things that I advocate for in my work"

"I feel like I’m only here because of the people who have come before me"

"Fashion innovation is hard, but when people come in with their own aesthetic, it’s really inspiring"

"Originality and authenticity are synonymous to me in that, on a spiritual, more emotional level, it’s about staying grounded in who you are"

"The moments when I stop ­worrying about how I’m being perceived are really ­freeing."

"But what I love so much about the collision between time and space that has happened right now is the fact that I am in no way the face of anything, because when I look at so many of my peers, there are people doing the same work, more work, different work than I am"

"I describe my future as being policy-adjacent"

"I'm never going to find myself in positions in which I genuinely regret what I'm doing."

"We want this spectrum of ourselves portrayed in every physical possible spiritual, mental, emotional way that is so much more than saying I am a brown woman, or I am a black woman on TV, but saying, I am a fraction of my community"

"we are continuously undoing the works of how media, in particular, has been weaponized against minorities of any kind"

"So many times in the conversation, [colorism is used] as a straight up denial of blackness"

"I realized that when my norms did not fit those of the world around me, it was time to change the world norms"

"The story of immigration is something that is undoubtedly tied to mine"

"Leaving my teens is very intimidating to me."

"The journey into becoming an actor wasn’t one that was necessarily anchored in this desire to be on screen, but more so anchored in this desire to be a part of storytelling"

"My sense of audacity came from the fact that I felt so well represented in my home, from what I was looking at, from the fact that my parents formed what we call an alternate curriculum of books, folklore, fairytales, where everybody was global, Black, Brown, from every different part of the world"

"The question of why should the audience care is something that we’re always having to answer"