… Catch a rising star?

YARA SHAHIDI shimmers. Her fingernails are painted a pale iridescence that catches the light of the fixtures overhead as she gesticulates exuberantly while explaining the importance of “intentional intersectionality”. But it goes beyond makeup — she seems to glow from the inside. We’re in New York’s Crosby Bar on a rainy afternoon and the 19-year-old actor has just come from a luncheon at which she presented an award to Taraji P. Henson.

Yara entered the cultural lexicon at 14, playing Zoey Johnson on the US sitcom , but she cemented her position there offscreen by speaking out on issues of social justice. The first word used