Top 188 Quotes & Sayings by Mahershala Ali - Page 3

I do believe in the potential of like-minded people coming together.

My mother is an ordained minister. I'm a Muslim. She didn't do back flips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now, you put things to the side, and I'm able to see her, and she's able to see me. We love each other. The love has grown.

I'm not shy about trying to find what truth there is in any genre, whether that be an action piece, a sci-fi piece, a small indie film, or a play. I'm open to it all.

I started traveling by myself as early as 5 to see my dad. I'd go to Toronto or Los Angeles, depending on what show he was doing, but most often New York, and we would hang out, and he'd take me to museums and Broadway plays. The ones that had the biggest impact on me were the George C. Wolfe productions.

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.

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.

Regardless of theology or however you see life or relate to worshiping God, as an artist, my job is to tell the truth and then try to connect with these characters and people as honestly and deeply as possible.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

When you graduate is when you start to find yourself looking at the information in the audition breakdown and it says tall black African - or African-American built such and such. And you start seeing these character descriptions and seeing that, oh, you're only going in for the ones that are described as your look.

[Crack epidemic] definitely has impacted folks in my family, most definitely. I think that's true for most, if not all people, regardless of color, that grew up in and around areas that were closer to the nucleus of the crack epidemic.If you look at Baltimore or D.C., Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, like, Los Angeles.

Getting to St. Mary's College was a big deal for me because that essentially led to me getting to go to NYU.

I was always sort of ahead of myself in some way, shape or form and trying to envision how to get further along and closer to fulfilling that dream of being of being free and having a creative agency, so to speak.

I didn't have the passion for athletics in that way, that there were other parts of me that felt under-served and that needed to be nurtured and needed my energy.

It felt, like, so far from - or far enough from the reality of things that we can enjoy it purely as entertainment. And now it feels a little bit too in alignment, honestly, but yeah - so we'll see how season five [House of Cards] goes over there.

Because on that watch list, they would be like, yeah, your name - they told me like, yeah, your name matches the name of a terrorist or someone that they're watching. I was just like, what terrorist is running around with a Hebrew first name and a Muslim - Arabic last - I'm like, who's that guy?

Anyone who grew up in the crack era - you know, I grew up in that era - knew that there were also people out - and there are still guys to this day that are out there, you know, obviously drug dealing - but those were the guys who had access and had money. And some of those guys felt responsible to create opportunity for other people and were also aware of the dangers of their work and often aren't really the ones that are encouraging kids to get into drug dealing.

I had read some books on the Baha'i Faith. I had read - I was looking into Buddhism and trying to understand sort of the agnostic approach, so there was just a bunch of stuff I was just looking at.

What inspires me today is a desire to get closer to an understanding of what my artistic capacities are with the hope of organically sharing my gifts with an audience in the most heightened way I possibly can.

My connection to music is so strong. I cling to it. I vibe out to it. I release stress to it. Music is really always close to me. It's really present in my work in terms of how I relate to characters is through rhythm and sound, even in their speech.

My father had a lot to do with me thinking about acting, though he never saw me act. He passed away probably - he passed away as I was doing my first play, but I just think being exposed to it and being around it. It wasn't something that I ever thought I couldn't do because I grew up around it.

You are an American, so you're hurt that other American citizens have been hurt, but you end up having to shoulder the shame for something that you don't even believe. There's a lot of years where Muslims have dealt with having to make themselves very small and not disrupt the flow and not - make sure that you're not noticed because, you know, deep down inside people are not really excited that you're around .

My experiences growing up - my father lived in New York, so I was going out there in the summers and meeting really interesting people and people having what seemed to me to be extraordinary experiences and really taking advantage of these wonderful opportunities. And so I will go - I would go to the big city and watch these people performing onstage and doing television and films. And then I would go back to Hayward, and it just suddenly felt that much smaller and sort of limiting because I had this hyper awareness of how much larger the world was.

Again, having - fortunately having never been in trouble. And eventually I found out that I was on a watch list.

Gay, straight - whatever - adolescents in high school and coming out of junior high, that's such a difficult, awkward period and kids can be so cruel and mean.

I got into [acting] so late because of sports. And then when I was in grad school, I sort of got lulled into basically forgetting I was black, in - meaning that everyone you play at a conservatory, 95 percent of the characters are non-black.

Hold tight to the mentality of being a student, meaning hold on to curiosity and approach life as a student.

My dad moved to New York after he won "Soul Train" and the car and got settled in out there and was able to step right into Dance Theatre of Harlem and felt like he was in a show called "Omnibus" and "American Dance Machine."

[My grandmother] was the assistant pastor at Palma Ceia Baptist Church in Hayward - my grandmother, Evie Goines. And so my mother was doing - I remember when my mother graduated from beauty college, so I was about 5, and so I guess she was about 21. And I just remember being there, taking the pictures and seeing her get her diploma and everything. But she was doing hair for many years. during that time, she kind of started to discover or tap into her religious studies. It was around the time I was starting to go through puberty and hitting, like, 12, 13.

I think what I've learned from working on "Moonlight" is we see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves.

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.

Having a child is the polar opposite experience of the awards season experience. The awards-season experience requires you to be out in the community, in the heart of the community, at the nucleus of the film community in a really committed way for about a six-month period of time. Having a child requires you to nest, to be in your home, and to create and make your home and environment that is one that is potentially very welcoming and nurturing for a child.

Isaiah the prophet, Isaiah's second son was - his symbolic name was Mahershalalhashbaz. And Isaiah was - the Prophet Isaiah was instructed to write the name in all capital letters as a prophecy. And it means hasten to the spoils, speedy as the prey.

At the end of the day we're all spirits having a physical experience.

I think in some ways, I would go back home, and I didn't really quite fit in and couldn't - didn't have a person to bounce those experiences off of. So I felt a little bit trapped within me, and it made me feel lonely because I really couldn't - the things that were exciting to me, I couldn't really share those with another kid and that other kid understand that.

It was really a focus on how to in some ways keep moving in this direction towards something that allowed me to express myself in a way that sports didn't.

I was fortunately able to avoid getting into any trouble with police. There was - I remember I was 12, and I did something really (laughter) - a couple of friends, Cinco de Mayo - we were off school, and we saw some people looking like they were having a party. And we had a little bit too much time on our hands, and so we figured, as kids, a great idea would be to throw some things over the fence and hit all these people with stuff, like eggs and everything.

I became more curious about the story behind the story [in the House of Cards]. So what was really going on behind the headline? And it's a little bit sad that that show, it doesn't seem so much like entertainment the way it did back when we started doing it.

I had gone to - that was my second time going to the mosque. And then at that time we met [with my wife], she was Muslim and - but was at a point where - because her father is an imam and her mother, though, is a convert, but she was basically raised Muslim. And she was at that point where she was deciding or trying to come to terms with her own relationship with Islam and how to embrace that for herself. So I was sort of trying to come walk toward it.

At the end of the day we're all spirits having a physical experience. That really comes from my relationship with Islam because it just makes me really conscious of my action.

When we kind of get caught up in the minutiae, the details that make us all different, I think there's two ways of seeing that. There's an opportunity to see the texture of that person, the characteristics that make them unique. And then there's an opportunity to go to war about it and to say that that person is different from me and I don't like you, so let's battle.

So many Muslims would tell you that they felt like that you had to - you fold it into yourself because people were looking at you and recognizing you as being the culprit even though, look, I'm American. I don't believe that the teachings of Islam justified those actions.

I played all four years [at St. Mary's College] with - at a certain point, basketball became the thing I was doing most, but it was really in my periphery.

In my time at St. Mary's College, drifting out of sports because it was something that began to feel really finite. And I could see that I didn't have the passion to sustain a career in sports.

My mother is an ordained minister. I'm a Muslim. She didn't do backflips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now, we put things to the side, and I was able to - I'm able to see her. She's able to see me. We love each other.

I've personally been on the outside sometimes. But I was - I personally was never persecuted especially in the way in which sharing my own experiences.

I know there were periods of times where I didn't feel understood, and there were very few people around me that I felt like they really got me. There was one person who was sort of the one in my life that really got me.In general, I felt a little bit on the outside and not totally included. There was a period of time when we were moving around a lot. So I couldn't really hold on to a certain set of friends. And so that was a little bit difficult.

I went to a mosque in Philadelphia with [my wife] in December 24, 1999. And we we went to this mosque in Philly, and I just had such a strong reaction to the prayer. And I was really emotionally - I felt really grounded at that time. And so to be in this prayer and the imam is doing the prayer in Arabic and I don't understand a word of Arabic but I just remember these tears just coming down my face and it just really connecting to my spirit in a way that felt like I needed to pay attention to that.

My parents were kids when I was born. My mother was 16. My father was 17, and they got married in high school. And they split a few years later. When they split was when all that was happening also, and he - they were just coming into themselves. But they remained friends.

This is 2003, 2004. And then I started - after the Patriot Act, I would always get my financial packages in the mail and they would just be opened. And it was like, what is going on here?

I remember after 9/11, I started - I was working quite a bit in Vancouver. And then I realized I would go to catch my flight, and it would take me like 20 minutes to get cleared to fly, like, every time. I'm like, what is going on?

I never wanted to accept that. And so I have always fought against that in some way, shape or form and had - I've had people who have supported trying to get me in for things that were beyond the character description.

How do I transform and be believable as Krogstad in "A Doll's House" or Sir Peter Teazle in "A School for Scandal".

I think my mom gave me the borders, the - gave me a very clear understanding of what the perimeter was. And I had to find my fun within those boundaries.

I grew up in church. My mom's a minister, and my grandmother was an ordained minister. I was always very mindful of the presence of a greater being I call God.

I feel like [terrorism] acts are un-Islamic. So to see that happen and somebody do that in the name of God, it just - and the religion that you practice, it just - it hurts your heart so deeply because it's such a misrepresentation of the faith.

Between the two [parents], it was a really unique upbringing, I think, especially for where I was from.

The freedom that I wanted as a kid would - probably would not have been good for me and not in the way in which I wanted it.