“Grown-ish” actress Yara Shahidi blew everyone away in her green dress at the 2021 Emmys — but the actress says that she was in a rush to get back to class.
Shahidi was accepted into Harvard in 2017 but took a gap year before beginning her studies.
“I do fly out tonight to make it to class in time,” Shahidi told Entertainment Tonight. The actress handed out the second trophy of the night to Brett Goldstein, who won the award for best supporting actor in a comedy series category. “The lovely people at The Academy really helped me out because I was like, ‘Guys, I have a hard out to make this flight,’ ” she said.
“Black-ish” was nominated for five Emmys but received none.
Shahidi said that it was “just a great moment to look at what we have done” on the show.
“I feel like I have not had a chance sometimes to really reflect on the impact of the show,” she continued. “I mean, so many people spent the majority of their year pouring into this universe, so something like this is just such a wonderful way to roll into our final season.”
On the night, no major Black actors of color took home an award.
Speaking to Jimmy Kimmel in 2018, she shared that if she weren’t an actress, she would have been a professor.
“I’ve wanted to be a history professor for longer than I’ve wanted to be an actress,” she said at the time. “And so I used to have the Harvard webpage up, and I’d go through the course catalog. So needless to say, this is something I’ve been planning for a long time.”
“It’s a combination of history and economics and anthropology. And then, I’m taking African American studies as well,” she added of her degree. “I still want to teach, but I also describe what I want to do as being policy adjacent. So, I guess I want to be next to Capitol Hill.”
