Sarah Shahi

Biography

Aahoo Jahansouz “Sarah” Shahi (Persian: آهو جهانسوز سارا شاهی‎) is an American television actress and former NFL Cheerleader of Iranian and Spanish ancestry. She played Kate Reed in the USA Network legal drama Fairly Legal in 2011–12, Carmen on The L Word in 2008, and also starred as Sameen Shaw on the CBS crime drama Person of Interest. She has also appeared as the main female role Det. Dani Reese in Life, and in a supporting role in Alias.

While working as an extra on the set of Dr. T and the Women in Texas, Shahi met director Robert Altman, who encouraged her to move to Hollywood, where she received roles in several series, including Alias, Dawson’s Creek, Reba, and Supernatural. In 2005 she appeared in the supporting character role of DJ Carmen de la Pica Morales on The L Word, which she joined in its second season. Shahi’s two-year contract was not renewed after the end of the fourth season, and her character was written out.

She was cast as the possibly recurring character of Sameen Shaw on Person of Interest. She was featured in the sixteenth episode of the second season, “Relevance”, which aired in February 2013. In May 2013 CBS President Nina Tassler announced that Shahi would be added as a series regular for its third season.

Shahi married actor Steve Howey on February 7, 2009, in Las Vegas. On July 8, 2009, she gave birth to their first child, son William Wolf Howey, during an at-home water birth. In January 2015, she announced that she was pregnant with twins. On March 1, 2015, daughter Violet Moon and son Knox Blue were born during another home birth.