Set Life: Atlanta actress joins Mahershala Ali in ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’

Shakirah DeMesier was mixing a cocktail for a guest at the Ponce City Market location of The Upper Room, which she co-founded, when her manager called. She had landed the role of Khadijah in Amazon MGM’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, now in theaters nationwide and starring Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali as her husband Latif.

The 2026 Toronto International Film Festival-premiered movie about an assassin, widower, father and devout Muslim on a quest of grief and faith had actually already wrapped production when DeMesier’s management team got the call about the audition.

“They had already filmed Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother and sent it to editing, and, while they were watching the film, they said, ‘We don’t have a mother — a representation of what she looks like, who she was,’” DeMesier says of her role as Khadijah.

Right there, the story’s ethereal and indispensable role materialized.

“It was a Zoom audition, which is interesting because I don’t like Zoom auditions. I prefer in-person,” says DeMesier, who moved to Atlanta from New Jersey eight years ago. She is known for her role in the TV series The Other Black Girl and others and is also a writer, producer, director, playwright and entrepreneur.

Another tricky aspect of the audition: The role of the mother had no lines of dialogue — only presence.

“So when I had the 20-minute audition, it was prompts and improv during the whole thing,” DeMesier describes. “There was no preparation. It was directly with the director [Bassam Tariq], and it was just me and him on the call and the casting director.”

Essentially, the audition consisted of 20 minutes of “do this” and “do that.” And looking back, DeMesier realizes how much she learned and experienced in the short and surreal time span.

“I’ve not had an audition like that, an audition that had no words, an audition that required a level of stillness and availability. So I was grateful for it because it definitely stretched me,” she notes.

The very next morning, after she learned the audition had gone her way, DeMesier was on a flight to New York for filming.

“They had me film all the mother’s scenes [then], and so I didn’t actually get to meet Mahershala until we got to the red carpet for the world premiere in Toronto,” she says.

If the landing of DeMesier’s role in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother evokes an almost divine serendipity, the notion is even more pronounced when one considers DeMesier’s personal story.

“My parents are immigrants from Haiti. When you grow up in an immigrant household, it’s almost like you’re growing up in that country,” she notes. “So my first language was Haitian Creole, the language of Haiti. The foods that we eat are specific. The way we talk to each other is specific. The culture is very specific. And I’d argue that’s the way it is in many immigrant households.”

Juxtaposed with Black American culture, DeMesier finds that her initial experience of growing up in the United States was one of feeling different … for a time.

“Now I am part of Black American culture,” she notes. “But growing up as a Haitian American, I had to learn how to be Black American … what to wear to school. I had to learn how to maneuver both cultures.”

While learning to navigate her young identity and come into her own, DeMesier describes herself as a latchkey kid who spent time watching TV after school while her parents were at work — shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin and Living Single.

As she watched TV and film, DeMesier knew, “That is what I want to do. So, that’s what I did.” She became active in theater in middle school and high school, which led to musical theater and chorus in college, where she earned her business degree in marketing from Hofstra University in Nassau County, New York.

“They allowed me to be a part of the theater program without being a theater major, which I was very grateful for,” she adds of Hofstra.

Before diving headlong into filmmaking, acting,and entrepreneurship, DeMesier built up her skills in corporate marketing in New York for nearly a decade.

Then, 10 years ago, DeMesier had an experience that, looking back, life-alteringly and unknowingly figured into her portrayal of Khadijah in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. When her own mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer, DeMesier was her caregiver until she died.

“The loss of your mother … I don’t think it’s something you’ll ever get over,” she shares. “She was the first love of my life. And it was almost like she was the closest thing, to me, to God.”

While DeMesier was filming the role of Khadijah, she found, “I could really remember everything that my mother has given and everything that she was. And to be able to embody that in this film is an honor for me and me paying homage to her.”

Today, as that homage plays out in theaters across the nation in DeMesier’s ethereal portrayal in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, she is busy crafting other stories that are all her own.

At two Midtown Atlanta locations of The Upper Room — Ponce City Market and Colony Square — DeMesier and her business partner are providing a café-bar-hybrid place of comfort, connection and community.

“I believe in community wholeheartedly, and my hands are in different communities,” she states. “I’m Black. I’m a woman. I’m a child of immigrants. And so, being inclusive of all those things are very important to me. The bar [The Upper Room] is for people to gather, but it’s also for Black spirits owners.”

She continues, “All of our cocktails are made with Black-owned spirits, and we wanted to give people an introduction to these [top-tier] spirits they’ve never heard of.”

In terms of film and television, DeMesier’s next project is a short film she created, Little Shasha, a family comedy about growing up Haitian in Irvington, New Jersey. “Right now I’m really focused on the project,” she says. “It’s in post-production now, and we’re going to do the festival circuit.”

In the meantime, DeMesier and her team will keep watch for the next film and television opportunities that come up unexpectedly. From an Atlanta home base, surprises are not that rare and anything is possible, she has found.

“Atlanta is so Black, and I love that. It’s provided me the opportunity to open a bar. I don’t think that’s something I could have done in New York or New Jersey as easily. And when I [first] got here, I got an acting agent almost immediately,” DeMesier says. “Atlanta has provided me a lot of opportunities that I don’t think I would have had elsewhere.”

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Carol Badaracco Padgett is an Atlanta-based freelance writer who focuses on film and television, the automotive industry, architectural design and collaborative storytelling projects.