Yara Shahidi Says There's 'Something Really Powerful About Having a Black Tinker Bell' (Exclusive)

The Peter Pan & Wendy actress tells PEOPLE about her magical new gig as Tinker Bell

Yara Shahidi is a star and a scholar, so when the opportunity to take on the role of Tinker Bell came about, she asked a thoughtful question before signing on.

"What do we want to accomplish with this remake of something that's been done and is so beloved?" she remembers asking writer-director David Lowery (The Green Knight), who's behind Disney+'s new film Peter Pan & Wendy.

To her delight, "The entire Disney team was committed to doing more than just swapping out ethnicities," she says. "It's about telling a story that feels reflective of the times that we're in."

The 23-year-old star — and face of PEOPLE's latest digital cover story — says her role in the reimagined fairy tale (which stars English actor Alex Molony as Peter Pan and includes Lost Girls among the Lost Boys) is one of both deep meaning and pure fun.

Related:Yara Shahidi on Becoming Tinker Bell, Ending Grown-ish and Beginning to Adult

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"My take on Tinker Bell nods towards the classic feistiness that we love about her, that kind of overly expressive nature," says Shahidi, a fan of Julia Roberts's version in 1991's Hook.

For her iteration, she recalls holding 180 different facial positions to help create the tiny, mostly voiceless character's many expressions.

"It was cool," says Shahidi, who filmed Tinker Bell's scenes apart from the rest of the cast. "I'm so used to being on a set, like the Grown-ish set, which has staircases and rooms and beds. For this I was just on a set in Burbank and had to try to recreate that kind of immersive experience and literally fantasize the world around me."

For Shahidi, that light-hearted creativity was another part of the allure of this role.

"I think being Black and Brown actors, oftentimes our worlds and our work worlds are so serious," she says. "There can be a pressure to always be making a statement in everything you do."

She adds, "While I can argue that there's something really powerful about having a Black Tinker Bell, to be able to have a role where the job was fantasy was really an escape as an actor. … It reminded me how much I enjoy the creativity of my job."

For more on Yara Shahidi check out her PEOPLE digital cover story, and pick up this week's issue, on stands now.

Peter Pan & Wendy is streaming now on Disney+.

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Read the original article on People.