The actress celebrated the announcement with two posts on Instagram, first sharing a glowing selfie of herself in a green outfit with the caption, "lettssssgooooo #Tinkerbell." Countless stars congratulated her on the casting news, including her pal Zendaya, who simply exclaimed, "yyyyesssssss!!!!!!!"
The actress then uploaded an impressive fan illustration of her as Tinkerbell, which she captioned, "Thank you for all of the love. It, truly, means so much to me. I’m excited for this next adventure! Artist: @alexcollectsofficial."
In addition to Shahidi, Jude Law will also be joining the cast as Captain Hook. Ever Anderson is starring as Wendy and Alexander Molony will be the main character, Peter Pan. A release date hasn't been confirmed yet, but David Lowery will be directing the film while Jim Whitaker will serve as producer.
Shahidi's historic casting comes over a year after actress Halle Bailey was cast to play Ariel in the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, proving that Disney is making significant progress when it comes to diversity and inclusion in their films (and it's about time).
We'll be counting down the days until we see Yara transform into our favorite tinker fairy!