Mahershala Ali Quotes
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I haven't gotten to do the leading man thing, so I would love to do that!
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It's funny how you can be thought of as somebody who humanizes bad guys, and I'll take that, but it is something that gave me pause, and I started speaking to my team about finding a good guy.
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Theater will cast in a more open way; Denzel Washington might play Richard III. Television and film don't really cast openly like that. The theater world has always been a leader in diversity.
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It's a lot of wonderful things about the Bay area and Oakland that I absolutely love. I wouldn't change being from there by any stretch.
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People are really paying attention to the comic-book genre, and there's a lot of time and attention being invested in these projects with a wonderful sense of quality control.
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Social media has colonized what was once a sacred space occupied by emptiness: the space reserved for thought and creativity.
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I prayed every day of my life, and that was instilled in me as a kid, and as I've gotten older, that's just matured in me.
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'Moonlight' is a project that resonated with me more than anything else. I wouldn't have done 'Luke Cage' if they hadn't made time for 'Moonlight.'
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'Mahershala' is my nickname.
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I don't want to say I took myself too seriously, but I put a lot of pressure on myself coming out of school. I saw so many people leave the business behind, certain opportunities disappear for folks who had to go into other professions. That kind of terrified me. As a result, I wanted things to happen really quickly.
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I got out of grad school in 2000. I was about 26 years old. I've always said that I was late to acting because I didn't really start doing it in a focused way until I was in my early 20s.
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I do believe that there are creative chakras or different sorts of energy centers.
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One thing that the audience, and perhaps critics, aren't aware of is that, especially in a film like 'Moonlight,' you always shoot a lot more footage than makes the cut of the film.
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I have had that same experience where there are several people who have come up in my life at the right time and have made critical contributions to how I see the world and how I see myself.
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The people that I admire have a wonderful balance of self-belief and humility.
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There are so many women who contributed in a very real way in pushing for the space program during the time in which there was a lot of competition to get into space first, and to know that there were African-American women who were integral in that success is pretty phenomenal.
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I remember clearly, when I was about 4, my Aunt Linda said, 'I'm not babysitting him no more. He's bad.' It was one of the first conscious shifts I remember making. I decided, 'I'm going to be good now.'
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I got my Equity card right out of NYU grad school in 2000, doing 'The Great White Hope' at Arena Stage. I played Jack Jefferson. It was an amazing part to walk into, to carry that responsibility for that amount of time. The challenges and the breadth of that role were pretty amazing.
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My parents were in high school when I was born. My mom was 16, my dad was 17. They were kids, at the very beginning of coming into their own and finding themselves.
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I found myself sort of becoming a character actor, though I don't know if that would be my natural makeup.
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I watch a lot of home stuff; I like seeing things go from one thing to another and get fixed up.
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At a earlier age, I was kind of into a pretty large scope or range of music from Hieroglyphics and the Hobo Junction guys and all that to like a lot of stuff that was in New York like Diamond D, Nas, Brand Nubian, of course Biggie, OC, Organized Confusion, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Digable Planets, who I just saw recently, and they killed it.
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I thought, 'I've been doing this for 16 years professionally. I have a window where I want to play leading parts.'
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You want entertainment in general, every aspect of it, to be more of a reflection of the diverse world that we live in.