Yara Shahidi is “Grown-ish” and in talks to topline her own film. The actress may be starring in an adaptation of Nicola Yoon’s best-selling YA novel “The Sun Is Also a Star,” The Hollywood Reporter confirms. The love story was a 2016 National Book Award Finalist.
Penned by “Girls Trip” co-writer Tracey Oliver, the timely MGM and Warner Bros. pic follows Natasha, an NYC-based teen trying to keep her family from being deported back to Jamaica when she falls in love.
No word on who will direct.
“Hunger Games” actress Amandla Stenberg starred in a film adaptation of Yoon’s “Everything, Everything” last year. The Stella Meghie-directed romance grossed over $61 million on a budget of $10 million.
Best known for playing Zoey, the eldest Johnson daughter on ABC’s “Black-ish,” Shahidi now stars on her own Freeform spinoff of the series, “Grown-ish.” Her other credits include “Trollhunters,” “The Fosters,” and “Scandal.” She played a young version of Olivia Pope in the latter.
Shahidi is set to make her directorial debut in Season 2 of “Shatterbox Anthology,” Refinery29’s women-helmed short film series. “Being somebody who’d been in California for most of her life, I’ve benefited from how diverse it is, how open it is, how liberal it is. [My short] really stemmed from us wanting to dive further into that … and still discuss the universality of what it’s like to be an unprotected class of any kind, whether you’re a person of color, whether you’re an immigrant, whether you’re a woman, whether you’re differently abled — whatever it is,” she told The Los Angeles Times. The BET Award winner added, “Directing really makes you stick to your voice and have the ability to back it up, saying, ‘This is how I want to do it.’ Of course you have to make compromises here and there, but it really did remind me to not be so willing to [make compromises], and to feel empowered to execute my vision.”
Shahidi previously penned an essay on the importance of activism and diversity on-screen.
“Grown-ish” premiered on January 3 and was renewed for a second season about two weeks later. The series follows Zoey’s college experience at Cal U.
