Meet Lara Shah
August 14, 2024
We were lucky to catch up with Lara Shah recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lara, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
At the risk of sounding cliché, it was love at first sight as I locked eyes with my purpose from across a dimly-lit bar.. it felt like we knew each other from different lifetimes.. like my purpose and I were old soulmates. The year was 1988, I was four, the setting was a pre-school in Jupiter, Florida. There was a stage in the cafeteria turned all-purpose room, and I was in its very center. Cut to: my (very cute) outfit of cat ears and whiskers in my role as “Mother Cat” in “The Three Little Kittens” and, as the words “You naughty kittens, you’ve lost your mittens!” poured from my mouth, I was absolutely and irrevocably hooked. Storytelling as an actor became the vehicle through which I felt most alive. For years, I fought it and tried everything else – radio hosting, journalism, news anchor, domestic sales and publicity at Warner Bros. and MTV, etc. – but nothing felt as right as being in the driver seat of a story and playing in my imagination. When a series of life choices led me to play a background detective on One Tree Hill in Wilmington, NC, there was nothing else I could dream of as a better fit for me than to be an actor for the rest of my life. Twenty-three years after the bug first bit, it was love at re-sight and I didn’t look back as I fell hard – again. By the time I “restarted,” I also realized that using my voice and my platform as an artist could also lend to my other passions – being a voice for endangered elephants, being an activist, and emulating my incredible parents and ancestors in making the world a slightly better place.
About Me
Finding Inspiration in Every Turn
Lara Shah is a SAG-AFTRA actor and producer in Los Angeles. She started her acting career in Austin, TX and has since been in over 100 films, television shows, music videos, and commercials since her venture into the creative side of the entertainment industry. Lara has won Best Actress awards for her lead roles in "Trippin' to the Altar" and "Kendall County Hunters." Lara has a passion for storytelling and entertainment: she was a television anchor in high school, a radio host at Boston University, and an intern at MTV Networks in NYC. She also worked for five years in Domestic TV Distribution Sales at Warner Bros. in NYC. In 2011, she traveled to Wilmington, NC to play a Detective on "One Tree Hill." The experience convinced her to finally pursue her passion. Lara studies with Lesly Kahn & Company in Los Angeles.
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