But like her mom, when it came time for graduation, Fatehi also felt pressure to follow a more traditional path. After high school, she enrolled at York University in Toronto, where she studied political science and international relations while juggling multiple jobs (“waiter, McDonalds, telemarketing company”). “I didn’t feel like myself,” says Fatehi of that time in her life. What did light her fire, though, was the response she got from the audience when she sang and danced at small gigs like weddings and anniversary parties: “That’s what gave me the confidence—or the audacity—to [pursue] this.”
A Google search led her to a talent agency in Toronto which led to an offer for a three-month modeling gig in India. It wasn’t exactly the big break that Fatehi, a singer, dancer, and actor, had envisioned—but her agent saw the big-picture benefits of forging a career in India. “Bollywood inherently does music, dance and cinema together,” Fatehi recalls him telling her. So she packed her bags and flew there alone. And in a matter of months, she was shooting her first movie.
That’s not to say there weren’t some speed bumps along the way. As a model, Fatehi quickly realized that on-set makeup artists often didn’t “understand this face of mine,” she says. “I remember certain makeup artists thinking that what makeup looks on someone else would look good on me. It was one-size-fits-all, which was terrible for me.”
“Sometimes I look at older videos and pictures of [myself] and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, why did they contour my face like that?’” she continues. “Thankfully, because I have so much interest in beauty and makeup, I realized that less is more for my face. The softer it is, the better it is.”
Today, she plays with “pinkish tones” on her lips—her tried-and-true lipstick is MAC Runway Hit—and tries to go as “bare as possible” on the eyes. After a period of dealing with “terrible acne marks and scars” about five years ago (“I was really insecure,” says Fatehi), she discovered the Moroccan skin-care line Izil Beauty, for which she’s served as an ambassador.
“I’m [also] loving lasers these days; there’s a specific one I’ve been using called Pico that’s really good for marks,” she says. “I love to be on the beach and it doesn’t matter how much sunscreen you put on, eventually you will get sun spots—so Pico has really helped me with that.”
