I really love hip hop. My cousin Nas came out with an album Life Is Good, and I love that album, but I also love Maroon 5.

Week-by-week you grow with your character and it's an interesting challenge.

There are two conflicting philosophies that I love: "Everything happens for a reason," as well as "you can change everything that you have control over."

There are so many times in life when you have to suppress what you're feeling. A lot of kids have to deal with that in a school environment: You're not allowed to be happy, sad, depressed, over the moon. Being an actor not only do I get to play an angsty teen, but I get the support that I need to be Yara.

I'm lucky; my parents have never said to me, "You're a kid, so you just don't know." They say, "How can we discuss the world and learn from these events together?"

Part of why history is so important in my life is because it brings you an awareness that everything isn't new. It gives context to what's happening right now. History is cyclical but circumstances and technology change. So when social justice topics come up, they're not new. They're just being covered more. We have more ways to record it now.

No matter how cutting-edge Hollywood may seem, it is still delayed in how it views people: If producers do not perceive me as an Iranian girl, then I cannot play an Iranian girl. If you aren't perceived as a full black girl, then it makes it more difficult to play a black girl on TV.