Mahershala Ali Quotes
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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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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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The work that I do with all of my characters is have some sense of where they come from. I kind of create my own story for myself. What's going on with my parents? Are they alive? Or family - do I have children? Do you see those things or not?
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I grew up on a wide range of stuff. OutKast, they been around for over 20 years, and some of the L.A. cats like Defari, Dilated Peoples and Likwit Crew. I was always going to these shows and catching the KRS-One tennis ball, as he would throw those out, EPMD. I could go on and on.
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The things that people won't totally accept come in all shapes and sizes and forms, and I can relate to that in my own youth.
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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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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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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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To really be conscious of how long the journey is, be patient, push yourself, persevere, and always be working on your craft while waiting for your break. That's what I'm still working on, having done this for 20 years now.
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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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I just love what Nicholas Britell did with 'Moonlight.'
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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 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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When I was growing up, I was told you could be anything you want to be, but I didn't really believe that because you couldn't be president. Like, I knew that; we never had a black president.
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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 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 do believe that there are creative chakras or different sorts of energy centers.
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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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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 was a sports kid.
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I really love Tom Hardy. He makes really interesting choices.
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I really wasn't into comic books growing up.
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I'm excited about 'Luke Cage' with Michael Colter, who plays Luke Cage. I play the villain, Cottonmouth. It takes place in Harlem. It'll just be amazing for people to get to see an African-American superhero, which there weren't any when I was growing up.