Posted on Sat, Jul. 09, 2005

The star word

Five years ago, Sarah Shahi arrived in Hollywood toting only a beauty queen's tiara and the pompoms of a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. The Euless native had never even been in a high school production of Our Town . Today, thanks largely to her steamy role on The L Word , Showtime's critically successful lesbian soap opera, Shahi is forcing attention-deficit-disordered Hollywood to take her measure.

Currently filming The L Word 's third season in Vancouver, the 25-year-old Shahi is showing signs of being considerably more than Tinsel Town's ephemeral flavor of the month. With her cascading brown tresses and dusky exotic looks, Shahi has earned recurring roles in numerous high-profile shows plus a memorable, if brief, turn in the Will Ferrell-Luke Wilson movie Old School .

And in the ultimate sign of pop cultural "it girl" status, Shahi is cropping up in all the right magazines and on the Net. Google her and you'll find 60,400 sites mentioning Shahi. She's in Men's Health , wearing a come-hither look while reclining languorously on a sofa. And in Maxim , wearing lingerie and spouting such bad-girl quotes as, "I'm not one to be messed with. I can be bad when it needs to happen."

This cheesecake offensive is playing off Shahi's exuberant sexuality in The L Word, where she is often seen nuzzling some comely co-star. Oddly enough, for all of Shahi's complete lack of experience playing a lipstick lesbian, she shrugs it off as just another day on the job.

"My approach to my character -- well, let's see: Carmen is gay and I am not," Shahi says. "This character is definitely not someone who grew up in Euless, Texas. But Carmen is someone who is not as turmoiled as some of the other characters on the show, and that is similar to the way I am."

Ask Shahi for the acting role model who has helped her with her first flush of fame and she all but blurts out, "Julia Roberts." Shahi's fascination with Roberts borders on the obsessional. According to a close LA friend and a former acting coach, Shahi possesses an exhaustive collection of Julia Roberts movies.

"I always wanted to be Julia Roberts, specifically in Pretty Woman," Shahi readily admits. "I remember watching her movies for hours on television."

One of Shahi's first LA friends, fellow actress Ali Humiston, recalls how Shahi purposely picked out a scene from Runaway Bride to do in their acting class.

"Her feeling about Julia Roberts," says Humiston, "is comparable to young girls who are glued to the television every time Brad Pitt comes on. But with Sarah, she would really study Roberts -- especially her laugh and smile."

One of Roberts' qualities Shahi didn't have to borrow is a relentlessly competitive spirit. It's a drive Shahi clearly cultivated while being immersed in the aggressively selective worlds of both beauty pageants and cheerleading.

It all started very young for Shahi, who is of Iranian and Spanish heritage. At age 10 she entered an international modeling competition in New York. By 19, she had already been crowned Miss Fort Worth USA and had gone on to join the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad. While working as a cheerleader extra on the Texas set of Dr. T and the Women , she caught the eye of director Robert Altman, who encouraged Shahi to give Hollywood a serious shot.

"Altman was such a catalyst for me, so encouraging about me being able to do it," recalls Shahi, who by that time had Americanized her name from its Iranian original, Aahoo Jahansouzshahi.

Following Altman's advice, Shahi packed her bags for LA, never once thinking that it might end disastrously.

"I just never doubted anything," says Shahi. "I was maybe too naive to even think, 'What if this doesn't work?' But I think my 'Why can't I do this, too?' attitude worked to my advantage. I just didn't think that any of the deception and scandals of Hollywood would ever touch me."

Once in Hollywood, Shahi never had to work a single day as a cocktail waitress to tide her over between acting jobs. Her first role had her playing -- what else -- a cheerleader on a Saturday morning show called City Guys.

In quick succession, she landed a manager and several brief roles in Spin City , Boston Public and in a series of noteworthy pilots, including one for a Friends rip-off called Class of '06 . Eventually she nabbed a recurring role as Jenny opposite Jennifer Garner in Alia s, a prominent turn that landed Shahi on such quality shows as Frasier and Dawson's Creek .

And then came her part as Erica, playing suggestively with a carrot and opposite a streaking Will Ferrell in Old School . Coming off the infantile if highly successful Old School , Shahi nailed the audition for The L Word .

"One always had a sense with Sarah that she had her eyes on the prize early on and nothing was going to stop her," says Geno Havens, one of Shahi's first acting coaches, who also remembers vividly that the minute anyone in his class did a scene well, Shahi vowed to be that much better.

"And with Sarah's personality," recalls Havens, "everyone -- meaning producers or directors who might attend the class -- would always remember her. ... And often she was not the best in the class."

For all of Shahi's churchgoing, no-dates-allowed upbringing in conservative North Texas (she is the product of an aristocratic Iranian family; her great-great-grandfather was a 19th-century Persian shah), she has shown no qualms over locking lips, and more, on The L Word .

"Kissing a girl -- well, it's really just like kissing any stranger's lips," says Shahi, who in her off-the-set life has been linked in some fashion with such actors as Jamie Kennedy and Rob Schneider. "As an actor, you are there to do a job, and you just go for it."

Adds Rose Troche, The L Word co-executive producer who has directed Shahi in several episodes: "You never hear from Sarah, 'Do I have to do this again?' which can happen in a show with sexual material and actors who are just not in the mood. Sarah brings a definite work ethic to her acting, which I really appreciate."

In addition to Shahi's nose-to-the-grindstone attitude (for The L Word , she has sought out tutoring in Spanish) she seems to be a natural at communicating girl-next-door -- admittedly in a really sexy neighborhood -- charm. Her "one-of-the-guys" sexiness first blossomed during the grueling audition process.

"I remember going on one audition and finding her already there," recalls Humiston. "Clearly, she had just marched right in there, and had been telling some jokes -- even off-color ones -- while being this really pretty girl, and she didn't seem to care about it at all. At that point, she hasn't even begun to read for the part and she already has the whole room laughing. Nothing really scares her."

Especially the unabashed pursuit of fame.

"I really believe that Sarah occasionally wants to be more of a star than an actress," says Havens. "I actually think she wants more of the celebrity than the actual accolades of the critics. It can become a bit of the Paris Hilton syndrome."

Over the last couple of years, Shahi has said as much in print.

"I'm going to be the female Elvis," she was quoted as saying in a 1999 People magazine piece.

"I want to be the most famous actor the world's ever seen," Shahi was quoted as saying in the October 2002 issue of Maxim . "I want to be 10 times what Jennifer Lopez could ever be. Will Smith has built an empire; I want to build a kingdom. That's just how big I see."

All the hyperbolic predictions aside, Shahi certainly couldn't have timed her Hollywood emergence much better. With her ability to play either European or Latino, Shahi is positioned to walk in the ethnic footsteps of everyone from Salma Hayek and Jennifer Lopez, to more recent Euro-Latin stunners such as Jessica Alba, Eva Mendes and Eva Longoria.

"LA can really want the cookie-cutter-looking actress," reflects Shahi. "Everyone looks and acts the same. Growing up in Texas, where blond hair, blue eyes and big boobs are considered universally pretty, I would always ask, 'Why do I have to be curvy and short?' But suddenly, here, with me looking different from most, people are starting to gravitate to what they haven't seen much before."

But even if Hollywood is currently infatuated with the smoldering Latin look, Shahi is still reminded just how tenuous her current success can be. She still loses roles to actresses who are regarded as more bankable names. "I just keep plugging away," says Shahi. "I'm so focused on keeping on growing -- I certainly know my talents are not limited to playing a gay DJ on The L Word . My time will come."

Andrew Marton, (817) 390-7679 amarton@star-telegram.com

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/entertainment/12084169.htm

home · episodes · media · gallery · cast · links · contact