USA TODAY: Sarah Shahi turns cheerleading into 'Legal' experience
By Nancy Mills, Special for USA TODAY
January 24, 2011
Sarah Shahi started her professional life as a cheerleader. It was a career move, not a lifestyle choice.
"I was singing in a production of 'Chicago' at my college, Southern Methodist University, and I wanted to be an actress," Shahi, 30, says. "But I didn't know how to do it in Texas. One of the dancers said, 'Why don't you try out for the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders because they have something called the show group and they need singers and they were on Saturday Night Live back in 1995.'"
So, she did.
"Cheerleading was my way in. It was one of the most rigorous audition processes ever. It definitely groomed me for Hollywood. I'd never been a cheerleader, but I'd danced. And I was captain of the volleyball team and the basketball team, and I ran track."
Shahi made the team for the Cowboys' 1999-2000 season. She then moved to Los Angeles and worked her way up from playing, guess what, a cheerleader on the series City Guys to top billing in the new USA Network drama Fairly Legal, which premiered Thursday (10 ET/PT). She plays a lawyer who becomes a mediator because she is fed up with the injustice of the justice system.
"My character Kate doesn't spit out a bunch of legal jargon," Shahi says. "She knows the law and how to manipulate it in her favor. She's not dependent on any male relationship. She's incredibly strong, strong-willed, opinionated and tough. She holds her own, but she's got flaws. She's not St. Kate..."
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