A Quote by Mahershala Ali

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.
I like going to the matinee. I like taking my daughter there. It's just my favorite place in the world. I go there after auditions. I lived in New York City, I would go to the theater right after because it clears your mind.
For 10 years while I was at ESPN, I lived at the Residence Inn in Southington, Connecticut, near Bristol. I did that because my wife had a great job in New York City, and we had a place in New York City, at 54th and 8th. On Friday, I would come back, and then on Sunday evening I would go back to the Residence Inn.
I went to Wellesley College, and it was really hard for me to get a job after I graduated. I would go into places where I would not see any black people at all in Boston - like, zero. And then in publishing in New York City, it was pretty much the same. I knew that it wasn't about the value of my work.
I don't go there much. You're thrilled that people would recognize what you're doing in such a grand kind of way. But, just like you don't know if anybody's really going to like what you're doing when you put a record out or if anybody's going to pay attention to it, you can't really go there.
A lot of the reason I left New York, in addition to being so broke, was that I just felt I was becoming provincial in that way that only New Yorkers are. My points of reference were really insular. They were insular in that fantastic New York way, but they didn't go much beyond that. I didn't have any sense of class and geography, because the economy of New York is so specific. So I definitely had access and exposure to a huge variety of people that I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed in New York - much more so in Nebraska even than in L.A.
My parents are just really down-to-earth, earnest, hardworking people that don't want for anything. I think that really served me because when you put more value on experience than things, then you're going to go out and have experiences.
When I was in New York, the whole vibe was really just not matching with me. I was kind of super depressed in New York. It just had this vibe of 'Get out,' you know? I would try to get out, and we'd look back and just see the city and feel like, 'Oh, I have to go back to prison again.'
It is true you can be successful without [college], but this is a hard world, a real world, and you want every advantage you can have. I would suggest to people to do all that you can. When I dropped out of school, I had worked in the music industry and had checks cut in my name from record labels and had a record deal on the table, and when I wasn’t successful and Columbia said, ’We’ll call you,’ I had to go back and work a telemarketing job, go back to the real world, and that’s how life is. Life is hard. Take advantage of your opportunities.
I remember when we were doing "Batman Begins" and to watch Chris Nolan go from "Memento" to "Batman" and take that leap from such a smaller size to a big movie, that's inspiring. But those movies are their own type of art and you have to really understand it and really know that world and I would have to take a long time to figure that out.Because my brain doesn't naturally go there.
Social media really makes it tricky for people sometimes because you go, 'Oh, it's awesome. I'm gonna play this character. I'm going to do this really weird thing on camera,' and then you go back and read all your tweets and go, 'Mmm, well, I guess they didn't like that so much.'
You can be an idiot and survive because you just go to McDonalds for your food, and you go to work and do some sort of inane job, which is nobody taking any responsibility - it's always up the line - and then you watch the Super Bowl, and that's it. But in the old days, you really had to know how your world works. You don't need that anymore.
The problem with the literary hothouse of New York City is that people spend so much time looking in the mirror. They go to parties with people who are just like them, and they write novels about people who are just like them. It's limiting.
Confusion is the only state of mind we have where we are really out of our patterns and what we expect. Because of that, you're open to new experiences. The irritation in concert performances is really important. When people get really irritated, they listen on the front of their stool and ask, "What's going on?" If I deliver what they expect - sad, soft piano music - then people would just shut down.
I took part in a theatre festival in Massachusetts two summers after I graduated from college. Then I was in Los Angeles thinking: "I'm going to go to New York." I'd decided that I would not have a chance of a film career, so I was about to make the move. I bought a plane ticket and found a place to live in New York, packed my bags and of course the universe "told me" that I was not meant to go. Suddenly, a week before I was supposed to leave, I had three job offers and one of them was my first movie.
My plan was to go to New York and do some theatre, and then I got the script for 'Psych.' I was like, 'Ahh - just as I thought I was out, you pulled me back in!' I had a great meeting with the show creator and we laid out the parameters to make the show work: what I would do, what he would let me do.
As a kid growing up, I really hated being alone. I was always that kid that was like, 'Do you want to hang out? Let's go to the mall. Let's go to the movies. Let's go to the park.' I would call people and call people and call people. If I was alone when I wasn't at school, then there was something wrong.
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