-Our next guest is both the star and executive producer
of "Grown-ish," which will air its third season finale
this Thursday at 8:00 p.m. on Freeform.
Let's take a look.
-I cannot believe I let you both talk me into this.
I should not be here, especially considering
that Rochelle asked me to practically be besties
with her and Aaron the other day.
-This is Aaron's big night.
We are here to celebrate the amazing thing he did
with the protest, not to talk about
how you hijacked the pinga from his girl.
-Exactly. So take the shot,
put your big girl-panties on, and suck it up.
The night will be over before you know it.
-Right. -Right.
'Cause it's a friend's graduation at Titanium.
It's in and out. How awkward can it be, right?
Mm. -Zoey! -Hey.
-Oh, my God! -Hi.
-Hey, Rochelle!
-Please welcome to the show Yara Shahidi.
How are you, Yara? -I'm good.
How are you? -I'm wonderful.
And I think happy birthdays are in order.
I know it was last month, but you turned 21.
-Yes. -And, of course,
now it's not that unique. We've all had a quarantine
birthday as we've gone a full year here.
But how was yours?
-Mine was great. I was saying I'm pretty lucky
to have a family that I love and like,
and all of our birthdays are very close together.
So, mine's the 10th of February. My brother is the 14th
of February, and then, we just had a March 7th.
So it's like a season of celebration.
-And you have been spending most of this year with your family.
So it sounds like it's going better than maybe it would
for people who don't like their family as much as you do.
-Yeah! I'm pretty grateful.
I'm sure my brothers are tired of seeing me around so much.
I went into my brother's room maybe yesterday
and just started making random noise, and he's like,
"What is happening?"
This is the point in which we are all starting to fall apart.
-I also heard that when you were growing up,
your parents would not allow you guys
to watch TV during the week.
I'm assuming those rules have been loosened
now that you are actually on TV? -Yeah.
I mean, that sounds so Draconian,
but it was just one of those, like, we were the kids
listening to audiobooks and stuff,
and it wasn't until I became a series regular on a show
that TV started happening on Wednesdays.
-[ Laughs ] That's very -- They gave you one day back.
So, I want to ask this. You know, you play
a college student on the show,
and you are a college student in real life.
Sometimes we find out that people who play
high school students or college students on TV
are actually decades older. But this is a case
where this actually parallels with your life.
How different a college student are you
from the one you play on TV?
-Oh, polar opposites. I mean, I've been playing Zoey
for seven years, and it's been interesting
because I don't think there's ever been one point
in which we've converged as human beings.
But this season, I feel like life paralleled art, et cetera,
in that, I mean, this season,
Zoey's going between work and school,
and it was literally what I was doing,
just kind of flying back and forth.
And before this, it was so funny.
I had a meeting with a professor who I really love.
And he was like, "How much time do you have?"
I was like, "Funny you ask.
I'm on the 'Seth Meyers' show in like a couple minutes."
So, I only have like a 20-minute window.
-I do hope that if your professor is now checking
to make sure you were lying, or I should say,
to make sure you're telling you the truth,
we should say hello to him and thank you for watching.
-Absolutely. Thank you so much, Professor.
-So you actually filmed all of this before the pandemic.
This whole season was 2019. But now you're in preproduction
for season four, which I imagine will make
being a college student a little bit harder.
But, usually, how do you manage the multitasking?
-So, season three, I was solidly flying back and forth
twice a week, which was interesting.
Got so many miles, and so, that'll, I'm sure,
come back around and be so helpful later in my life,
all the miles I got.
And then this one, I mean, everything's on Zoom now.
So I'm reporting live from my trailer
and will go into work I think a couple --
in like a couple minutes after this.
And it's actually strangely, like, worked out.
But I've been to a total of like 12 different school programs.
I was very much like the educational guinea pig,
not in a Frankenstein type of way, with my family,
just trying to figure out what education works.
So I've done distance learning before.
And so this is kind of old hat in a way that I'm grateful for.
-You have your own production company.
Your partner in your production company is your mother.
How has your working relationship been so far?
-Yeah. Okay, people that know me
and my mother, we've been business partners for a minute,
and, I mean, other than the fact that we have different names,
we're pretty much the same human.
[ Both laugh ] And so it really,
I think, if anything, works out very well.
It's to the point where people do double takes.
They can't even identify which one of us is on the phone.
All sorts of things. But anyway, like,
we've been partners forever.
And then moving into production has been so beautiful
because we have the same instincts.
And I think, you know, being in a family comedy,
people don't necessarily expect having darker shows
or more irreverent shows coming out of our kind of
ecosystem and our production company.
But to have both of us advocating for the same things
is pretty wonderful, and we have too much
of a good time because we can really hype each other up
on our jokes and such.
So even if no one else gets it, I mean, there's always somebody
in the room that's right there with you.
-So does that mean that you never
have disagreements on projects?
You're sort of in lockstep on taste all the time?
-I mean, really, it sounds like a mythical,
magical mother-daughter relationship
that people don't see often. And people are always trying
to pull out something crazy from us.
It just -- We're too similar.
[ Both laugh ] -Yeah, I think it's
even more impressive when you think,
"Man, I've never seen mothers and daughters
get along that well," and certainly, I wouldn't think
show business is where that would be different.
So it's quite an accomplishment to both of you.
Congratulations. -Thank you.
-I've also heard that you are a comic-book fan.
Is this a true fact? -Absolutely.
I have storylines as to why I belong in the
Marvel Comic Universe that I made up.
-Well, that's good. Well, hopefully,
someone at Marvel is watching. It seems to me that you would be
a perfect fit for the Marvel Universe.
-Oh, I had so many -- I was in 12 seconds of a movie
as Samuel L. Jackson's kid at the age of like 13,
and I was like, "If this is not an in,
then I don't know what is." -[ Laughs ]
-Like, I need to be -- I gender swapped.
I was like, "I should the be Nicole Fury,"
'cause Nick Fury has a son.
I wrote a page for it, a one-sheet.
Marvel Studios has a headquarter right where we shoot
"Black-ish" and "Grown-ish."
I was like, "This is perfect. You can greenscreen me in."
-It sounds like they might have to put a photocopy of your face
on the front door at Marvel to, maybe say, "Watch out.
We shouldn't let this person in."
-Oh, I mean, if I'm not on a watch list already, then maybe.
-Hey, thank you so much for being here.
Congrats on season three and as well on being
in production on season four. Really appreciate it.
-Thank you.