-Thank you for being here.
And thank you so much for playing Catchphrase.
-We got really competitive.
-Yeah, we really did, right? -Yeah.
-You know Tyler -- you worked together before.
-Mm-hmm. -You played his daughter
in "Alex Cross." -Yeah, I was 12.
My brother was also in the movie, and he was nine.
-Wow. -But we shot that
in the really scenic Cleveland area.
-Yeah. -It was --
Was he very nice?
-Yeah, I mean, it was such an incredible experience
working with him, and Cicely Tyson,
who's incredible, played our grandmother.
But I remember just having the best time
because we did scenes where I learned how to play the piano.
And we just had so many great experiences as a 12-year-old.
It was so much fun. -Yeah, right, amazing.
I saw your mom backstage. -Yeah.
-And she's so sweet. I love her.
I love seeing her. But you told me
it's not the same at home.
You guys play practical jokes on each other.
-All the time. -Really?
Are you a practical joke family? -Yeah.
So, I mean, even on the car ride here, my team was like,
"Oh, Yara, by the way, they're changing the game.
They're blindfolding you and making you touch stuff."
Which they know, like, that's my pet peeve.
So that's one example. But like on a larger scale,
one thing that has really stuck with me all my life
is the fact that one time my mother, I love her,
hid under my bed. [ Laughter ]
And I was walking, like, from the bathroom or something.
So must have been in there -- under there for a second.
She grabbed my ankles. [ Audience ohs ]
[ Laughter ] -Oh.
That's -- ooh. Did you go -- did you scream?
-It was terrifying. -Of course.
-I mean, I may or may not still check under my bed.
But -- -Oh, my gosh.
-I could be nothing but impressed
because the level of commitment...
-Yeah, how long was she waiting? -...that that took?
I have no clue to this day.
But it's what I aspire to be able to accomplish.
-Yes.
Tell the one about you did with your brother?
-Oh, yeah, okay. So my jokes -- I was trying
to figure out something that would last long.
So one time I was on a walk with my brother,
and he saw a wood chip that looked like a mouse.
And I was like, "Oh, that's a Callageon, Sayeed."
I just made up a word. I was like,
"It's something that falls from the sky
that looks like an animal."
'Cause I was like, the more specific you can get,
the better. -Yeah.
-For two years he swore this was like a really fancy art term.
And -- -Callageon.
-Yeah, so we -- and we also went to a decently small school.
So then I was the cool sixth grader
that got all of the fourth graders
to believe that this was a word.
And so this went into like -- I was well into middle school
when they realized -- I was in the car with him.
And I was like, "Remember when you believed
in the word Callageon?"
And I didn't realize he still believed in it to that day.
And I gave myself away. -And he's like, "What?
That's not a real word?" -Right.
Because it was so specific. It was like,
"There is no other word for that."
-There isn't, yeah.
But then didn't you look in the sky, too --
-Oh, yeah, we'd be on walks.
I was like, "See that cloud that looks like a horse?
A Callageon." I gave it ancient roots.
[ Laughter ] I gave it, like --
-That is commitment.
You got the commitment from your mom.
A two-year-long one. -I gave it a whole history
of like, "It's actually an ancient Aztec word."
And, like, I made a whole history behind it.
Because I was a history nerd.
And so like, half the stuff I told him, or like 85%
of what I told him was absolutely true.
And so for this other little percentage,
he had no a clue. -Not bad. Not bad.
Congrats on "Grown-ish."
Season three premieres this Thursday on Freeform.
Yeah. -Yes.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Season three.
-What day does it premiere?
-It's Thursday. It's on Thursdays.
-Yeah. -Yeah, yeah.
More than one Thursday. [ Laughter ]
You and the show just got nominated for some NAACP Awards.
-Yeah, it's really -- -Congratulations on that.
-Thank you. -That's a good --
[ Cheers and applause ] It's a nice honor.
-Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I mean, they've been
so supportive of me and my "Black-ish" family
from the get-go, and it's literally
what I credit my pubic speaking to
because they were the first people to put me on a panel
with adults and ask me my opinions about the world.
And so I'm just grateful that all the love extends
to the "Grown-ish" family. -Yeah, exactly.
-So I'm excited. -So "Grown-ish" now --
now, what are you -- you're a junior in college?
-Yes, junior in college.
My parents paid for a brand-new house this year,
which is very exciting.
But Zoey actually has a job, which is very new for her.
And I think it's the first season
where she's actually grown.
Like, she's on her grown-ish. -Yeah.
-So that's really exciting to see her not only, like,
navigate, of course, all the dynamics that we've seen
play out through season one and two with her friends
and with that lovely love triangle.
But there's also this other really grounded component
of her figuring out what it means to actually be an adult.
Because she didn't realize that college is, like, half adulting.
-Yeah. -You know, you're not fully
in the real world. -Oh, yeah.
-And so she finally gets that final barrier
of protection removed. -Don't ever leave college.
Just stay there. -Oh, no.
-It's so fun. It's so fun just to be that --
-"Ph.d.-ish." -Yeah.
"Ph.d.-ish", exactly, yeah. [ Laughter ]
Yeah, just never leave college.
Yeah, keep going. -"A Second Doctorate-ish."
-Wow, this is a great-ish show.
Yeah. I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's Yara Shahidi in the new season of "Grown-ish."
Take a look. -Thank you.
-You know how you never want to show up to a party sober?
You never want to show up to adulthood unprepared...or sober.
♪♪
So this is why I spent my summer killing it in the UK
and getting ahead of the job game.
♪♪
-My brand is doing a pop-up in a few days.
You should come too. -Like a job?
-Yeah, a job. -I went from working retail
at Joey Bada$$'s boutique, to running it,
to becoming his personal stylist by the time I left.
So I guess you could say I went from being cup bitch
to that bitch.
-Yeah, there you go. [ Cheers and applause ]
Yara Shahidi!