A Star is Born Down Under: Shabana Azeez’s Breakout Role in Golden Globe Winner ‘The Pitt’

When Shabana Azeez was rejected from drama school at age 21, she thought her acting dreams were over. Her Indo-Fijian immigrant parents had made a deal with her: audition for one drama school, and if she didn’t get in, she’d pursue a more practical career. The rejection letter arrived, and Azeez enrolled at the University of Adelaide to study arts and media, seemingly closing the door on performance forever.

Today, at 28, Azeez plays Dr. Victoria Javadi on HBO Max’s Emmy-winning medical drama The Pitt, one of 2025’s most acclaimed television series. It’s a Hollywood breakthrough that seemed improbable for a girl from suburban Adelaide—but Azeez’s journey illustrates both the challenges facing actors from underrepresented backgrounds and the power of grassroots indie filmmaking to launch careers.

The Indo-Fijian Experience

Azeez was born in Australia to Indo-Fijian parents. The Indo-Fijian community represents a unique diaspora: descendants of indentured laborers brought from India to Fiji by British colonial authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many have since emigrated to countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.

She was educated at St Aloysius College, an all-girls Catholic school in Adelaide, South Australia, from 2002 until 2014, where she was a member of the senior debating team and the choir. Describing herself as “very academic,” Azeez says that “everybody was quite shocked when I became an artist in my 20s. Nobody saw that coming.”

In an interview with The New Daily, Azeez explained her parents’ hesitation: “They are immigrant parents and they fought very hard for financial stability and then I wanted to be an actor which is very risky—and we didn’t know any actors, we didn’t grow up around that.’

When she realized at 21 that acting was her calling, she thought “I was too old. I was 21 and thought I had missed the train.”

Finding Her Tribe in Adelaide’s Indie Scene

After the drama school rejection, something unexpected happened. Her audition tape was shared with local filmmakers, including the creative duo Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs, opening the door to Adelaide’s vibrant grassroots film scene.

Azeez undertook a Bachelor of Arts and Media double degree at the University of Adelaide while beginning to build her acting career through short films and independent projects. From 2019 to 2024, she was part of the live comedy duo “The Coconuts” with Leela Varghese, performing regularly while accumulating television credits in Australian productions like The Hunting, The Letdown, and Metro Sexual.

She won the Best Female Actor award at Tropfest in 2019, Australia’s largest short film festival, which helped establish her credibility in the indie film community.

The Role That Changed Everything

Azeez starred in Birdeater, a 2023 Australian psychological thriller that premiered at SXSW 2024. The film, which examines toxic masculinity and coercive control, earned critical acclaim and put Azeez on the radar of international casting directors.

Azeez says she “got lucky” when Birdeater screened at SXSW in 2024 and she found American management, which led directly to The Pitt. “It was really fast,” she recalls.

The casting process for The Pitt was remarkably smooth. “Oh my god, it was the easiest casting process of my life,” Azeez told FilmInk. It was only her second American audition.

When asked about Fijian Indian representation, Azeez expressed appreciation: “Yeah, we’re around the place. There’s not many of us, but I feel like I hear about us doing stuff often, which is lovely. I love Fiji, and I love Fijian Indian culture. I think it’s beautiful and very cool.”

Victoria Javadi: A Character Close to Home

In The Pitt, Azeez plays Victoria Javadi, a 20-year-old third-year medical student whose parents also work in medicine. The series follows emergency department staff as they navigate a single 15-hour work shift, with each episode covering approximately one hour in real time.

Azeez describes her character as someone who “is really in her own world, she’s super intellectual, but she loves romance and fantasy and that she’s living in a fake brain. I’m really lucky to get a role that’s so complex and nuanced.”

The character’s cultural background isn’t explicitly identified, but the casting of Deepti Gupta as Victoria’s intimidating mother, Dr. Eileen Shamsi, suggests a South Asian heritage—making this one of the few American television shows to depict an Indo-Fijian character, even if not explicitly labeled as such.

When asked about Fijian Indian representation, Azeez expressed appreciation: “Yeah, we’re around the place. There’s not many of us, but I feel like I hear about us doing stuff often, which is lovely. I love Fiji, and I love Fijian Indian culture. I think it’s beautiful and very cool.”

Exploring Gen Z Loneliness

One of the most resonant aspects of Victoria’s character is her profound loneliness—something Azeez intentionally connected to generational experiences.

Azeez told Primetimer that “Gen Z is the loneliness generation on record, socialized on the internet, on iPads. There’s a real deficit of third spaces; being outside is expensive, everything costs money.”

In Season 2, set on July 4th, Victoria wears red, white, and blue heart earrings—an idea Azeez proposed. “There’s something about when you are, in a lot of ways, community-less, those big events like 4th of July are a great way to feel like you’re participating in something,” she explained.

Working with Noah Wyle

Azeez describes working with Noah Wyle, who both stars in and executive produces The Pitt, as transformative: “Noah is so successful and he is so good at his job and he’s so good off screen as well. He is so giving, he has a mind like a steel trap—he’s the sort of guy if you say you like something, the next day he will have brought you a book on it. He really works hard to make the environment so warm and welcoming for us young, new actors.”

Beyond The Pitt: A Multifaceted Career

While The Pitt has become Azeez’s breakthrough role, 2025 has been remarkable for her on multiple fronts.

She voiced the main character in Lesbian Space Princess, a 2025 animated absurdist comedy film. The film, which Azeez describes as “delightful and hilarious,” premiered at the Berlinale film festival in Germany. Lesbian Space Princess won the Teddy Award for Best LGBTQI Film at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In the film, Azeez voices Saira, the daughter of lesbian royals who rule the planet of Clitopolis, described as “a place which, as noted in the film, is hard to find.” The film represents her continued collaboration with her Adelaide indie film community—directed by her friends and former comedy duo partner Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs.

She also appears in Varghese’s short film I’m The Most Racist Person I Know, which won a Special Jury award at SXSW in 2025.

Reflections on Representation and Success

Looking back on her journey, Azeez told FilmInk: “They were mortified, but I did it for myself. Even my very academic group of friends at school were all like, ‘What are you doing?’ But I’m really grateful for how it all turned out and I’m really happy with where I am right now.”

As Famoustarz noted, “Growing up in the suburbs of Adelaide, Australia, a career in Hollywood seemed like a distant, almost impossible dream for Azeez. Born to Indian-Fijian immigrant parents, the path to becoming a professional actor wasn’t clearly laid out.”

Yet Azeez found that path—not through traditional drama schools or conventional routes, but through the Adelaide indie film community, through collaborations with friends who believed in her, and through a willingness to take risks even when her family expressed concern.

This story was aggregated by AI from several news reports and edited by American Kahani’s News Desk.