Sarah Shahi Movies and Career Information

Aahoo Jahansouz "Sarah" Shahi (born January 10, 1980) is an American actress and a former NFL Cheerleader. She is probably best known for starring in The L Word as Carmen de la Pica Morales and in Life as Detective Dani Reese. In 2011 she began playing the role of Kate Reed in the legal drama Fairly Legal on the USA Network. Sarah Shahi was born and grew up in Euless, Texas. She has an Iranian father, Abbas Shahi, and an iranian mother, known as Mahmonir, who was an interior designer. Sarah's family was forced to leave their homeland two years before the political and social unrest caused by the Islamic Revolution. Her birthname, Aahoo, means "deer" in Persian. Shahi adopted Sarah as her name in second grade after hearing the song "Sarah" because she was "tormented" by other children, but grew up speaking Farsi as well as English at her father's insistence. Shahi's parents began entering her in beauty pageants at the age of eight. Her parents divorced when she was 10. Shahi attended Trinity High School, where she was captain of the volleyball and basketball teams, and Dallas' Southern Methodist University, majoring in English and Theater. Shahi won the Miss Fort Worth USA pageant