Mahershala Ali Quotes
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Before I got into grad school, I used to work as a deck hand on these ferry boats in San Francisco, and they did day tours. It wasn't a bad job. I made decent money. But you were sitting down all day, tying up the boat, wiping it down. For some guys, that's a dream job, but for me it was kind of torture.
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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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'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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The people that I admire have a wonderful balance of self-belief and humility.
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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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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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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 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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I was going to try to get into the creative writing program at Berkeley; it's just that the acting thing worked out.
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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 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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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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'Mahershala' is my nickname.
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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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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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You want entertainment in general, every aspect of it, to be more of a reflection of the diverse world that we live in.
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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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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 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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It's important for people of colour to have the opportunities to play characters that are as nuanced - as three-dimensional, as human - as the characters who we traditionally see getting to play the protagonist. The good guys and the bad guys. The reason that is important is because it's a better reflection of the reality of the world we live in.
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My friends in college, several of whom are still my closest companions, would tell you that I was almost obsessed with becoming - fixated on creating - the future that I envisioned for myself: one of expanding to know my fullest self, which I have in no way achieved.
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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.