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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.

Mahershala Ali

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Mahershala Ali
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: February 16
Actor
Basketball Player
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Oakland
California
Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore
Mahershala Gilmore
Mahershalalhashbaz Ali
Things
Side
Love
Sides
Called
Backflips
Tell
Ordained
Mother
Converted
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Minister
Able
Muslim
Years
Ministers

More quotes by Mahershala Ali

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[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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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?
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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I think what I've learned from working on Moonlight is we see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves.
Mahershala Ali
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I'm not much of cook, but I cook a mean bowl of oatmeal.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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I do think that there are people who are able to connect with and empathize with anyone who is going through something difficult, just naturally. I don't think it's a world of effort for everyone.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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At the end of the day we're all spirits having a physical experience.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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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.
Mahershala Ali
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I think how strict my mother's home could be with my mom and my stepfather, there was a fluidity and freedom in my dad's existence that I enjoyed when I was around him, though the responsibility was just different. He expected me to carry myself a certain way without all the rules and confines.
Mahershala Ali
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I always hope to be a better person tomorrow than today.
Mahershala Ali