Mahershala Ali Quotes
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Family are the people that can hurt you the most.
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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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I love hip hop. It's such an appendage for me. It's something that's always shaped my experience out in the world.
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There's this Method Man album called 'Tical.' It's his first album. I would just listen to that every day, because the album feels like, if it were a film, it would be black and white. It feels like there's a war percolating throughout the album itself. It's dark, and it has a nice forward pace to it.
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I really enjoyed working with Mariah, Alfre Woodward's character, because she's a wonderful actor, and I felt we had a natural chemistry that was reflective of real family members.
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I think selfishly, as an actor, we always want to do more.
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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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To get to play someone who was in some capacity the King of Harlem, that meant something to me. Deep within my bones. I was inspired by the energy that I knew to be a real thing.
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Understand that we are all co-creators of our respective destinies.
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I was supremely fortunate to do several projects that I'm really excited about. So within all that, there's a lot going on this year. I'm excited about 2016.
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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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Come on, we would be foolish to say that there's never been African-American leads in some capacity, people of color in some capacity, leading shows or what have you. But it hasn't happened enough and in a manner that is an accurate reflection of the world that we live in.
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At that moment in time when we feel like the other, we were not the person embraced, not one of the cool kids, not in the club - when you're that person, it makes you feel smaller, and when they persecute you as a result, that's a difficult position to be in.
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At graduate school in 1999, I finally had the chance to examine why I believe what I believe. I realised that I'd had no period in my life where I'd consciously tried to develop my own theology.
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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.
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There are instances where you're in a space with someone who has been extraordinarily successful, and they don't necessarily connect with you as another person. You can be a prop for them to deliver their stuff, and you're just another element in the scene.
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I really wasn't into comic books growing up.
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As young people, you want to see people who in some way look like you to some degree, because it makes it a little easier for you to aspire to take on the qualities of those people.
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I approach things from my feeling first. I have to get a feel for the character. I'll do that through music; I'll do it through what is naturally popping up for me when I read the script. My ideas or whatever the occupation of the character might be.
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When I was growing up, in the '80s and '90s, I just never really saw myself reflected in the things that I had a liking for. It makes a difference.
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In terms of pace, I think I just have to revisit my relationship with expectations. That has a little bit to do with comparing ourselves to other people and seeing other people's journey and seeing how they had a certain success at a certain age.
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Basketball wasn't going particularly well, but in my senior year, I did a play and got a wonderful card from a professor that said, 'I don't know what your plans are after school or if acting is a part of it, but you have something special.' Hearing that from someone who I had so much respect for pointed me in that direction.
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I've been working almost 20 years, and I think I've worked with maybe one black director of photography in that time. Maybe two women directors or DPs. Maybe. And I've done a lot of TV. That's a lot of people I've worked with.
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I saw this documentary he did years ago called 'Fade to Black.' I was always a Jay Z fan - I liked Jay Z - but after I saw that documentary, I loved Jay Z. I realized how intelligent he was.