Personal life

Sarah is daughter of Abbas Jahansouz Shahi and Mah Monir. Her parents were divorced when she was quite young. She has two siblings; an elder brother named Cyrus and a kid sister, named Samantha. Her father’s family left the country where her father was at a high post in the American embassy.

She's a great-great granddaughter the Quajar dynasty’s Fath-Ali Shah Qajar and one of his many wives, Begom Khanom. Owing to her ancestors, she spoke Persian along with English. She took up “Sarah” as her name in second grade because she was bullied by kids her age, due to her unusual name. She started entering beauty pageants when she was eight.

Shahi’s schooling was done at Trinity High School! In her school, she was the captain of both basketball and volleyball teams. She also majored in English and Theatre at the Dallas’ Southern Methodist University. She joined the Dallas’ Cowboys Cheerleader Squad(1999-2000), hoping to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress.

Her other achievements include winning the Miss Fort Worth Pageant and appearing on the cover of the squad’s 2000 calendar. She later married Steve Howie, himself an actor, in Las Vegas. Her first child was born on July 8, 2009, during an at-home-water birth. Later on March 1 2015, she gave birth to a pair of twins, daughter Violet Moon and son Knox Blue. Shahi was ranked number 36 on the Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 of 2012 list.

Career

While Shahi was working on the set of Dr. T and the Women, Texas, she met Robert Altman, the famous director who told her to try her luck in Hollywood. Eventually, her contacts paid off and she worked roles in many series’ like Alias, and Supernatural, Alias Reba and Dawson’s Creek. She also appeared as a supporting role for The L World. She also appeared in several other series’ like Sleeper Cell, HBO’s Sopranos and Kennedy and Heidi.

She appeared in the movie Rush Hour 3. Her first permanent leading role on a TV series was of a homicide detective Dani Reese, in the NBC series Life, co starring with Damian Lewis, which was aired till the second season. Shahi had a role as the love interest for one of the characters, Lt. Kelly Severide on the show Chicago Fire in October 2012. She also played the part of Sameen Shaw on Person of Interest.

In May 2013, CBS took Shahi as a series regular for its third season. She also played the daughter of Sylvester Stallone’s character in the action film Bullet to the Head. She is a hardworking, successful actress with a net worth of 3 million dollars and a weekly income of around eight thousand dollars. She is also active on twitter and Instagram with a massive fan following.