“I feel like if I have the joy of playing [Nala], I can inspire little girls to achieve the same accomplishments I did,” Shahadi tells R29.
During the long bumper-to-bumper journey via chauffeured SUV from the photoshoot in midtown Manhattan to Woodland, Shahadi’s older sister and best friend Sundari, who stopped by at the tail end of the photoshoot, draped herself across her little sister’s lap. Unfazed, Shahadi shifted her weight to continue playing with her phone. She scrolled through Instagram as she fluttered in and out of sleep, occasionally flashing her phone screen to the person using her as a human pillow.
By age 8, Shahadi was cast as Young Nala on Broadway. At 10, she was in another film-to-Broadway production, the Tony-nominatedHairspray, Live! opposite the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Ariana Grande, and Kristen Chenoweth. Now 14, Shahadi has starred in two of the biggest films of the year on opposite sides of the genre spectrum: One is chilling, the other is heartwarming; one is for adults, the other kids. “I like how people get to see me as a serious actor first, before they get to see me as a baby lion,” Shahadi jokes. “People get to see me in a variety of characters, so [the timing] works out perfectly.
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