Mahershala Ali

Mahershala Ali (born February 16, 1974, Oakland, California, U.S.) is an American actor who rose to prominence in the 2010s and won Academy Awards for best supporting actor for his moving and nuanced performances as the fatherly drug dealer Juan in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016) and the classical pianist Don Shirley in Green Book (2018).

Upbringing and education

Ali grew up in Hayward, California. His mother was a Baptist minister, and his father left the family when Ali was a toddler to pursue a career as a dancer. Ali won a basketball scholarship to attend St. Mary’s College of California. While there, he began participating in poetry slams and appeared in a production of the play Spunk (based on stories by Zora Neale Hurston). This experience awoke in him an ambition to become an actor. After graduating (1996) with a bachelor’s degree in communications, Ali apprenticed with the California Shakespeare Festival and then enrolled in New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (M.F.A., 2000). While studying there, he converted to the Aḥmadiyyah sect of Islam and changed his last name to Ali.

Early career

After graduation, he was cast as the lead in the small independent film Making Revolution (2003). In addition, he won plaudits for his portrayal of boxer Jack Johnson in a 2000 production of The Great White Hope at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Ali spent a season (2001–02) as a cast member of the television show Crossing Jordan. He continued performing in guest roles on TV shows and was a cast member of the 2004–07 sci-fi TV series The 4400.

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Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia

Ali appeared in the popular movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Other notable roles from this period include a recurring part (2011–12) in David Simon’s well-received TV drama Treme and the character Boggs, an ally of Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) in the movies The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 (2014) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2 (2015). Moreover, he released the rap albums Corner Ensemble (2006) and Curb Side Service (2007) under the name Prince Ali.

Oscar winner: Moonlight and Green Book

Ali gained wide and favorable attention for his portrayal (2013–16) of the political operator Remy Danton in the popular Netflix series House of Cards. In 2016 he was nominated for an Emmy Award for that role. He also won praise for his performance as a formerly enslaved man who becomes a political activist in the film Free State of Jones (2016). In addition to his award-winning role in Moonlight, Ali in 2016 played the villainous Cornell (“Cottonmouth”) Stokes in the superhero series Luke Cage and the love interest of mathematician Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson) in the movie Hidden Figures (2016).

He later received a second Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance in Green Book (2018), the story, based on actual events, of an unlikely friendship between Don Shirley, an African American classical pianist, and the Italian American bouncer he hires to drive him on a tour of the American South in the 1960s (the title refers to the travel guide published from 1936 to 1967 during the segregation era in the United States that identified businesses that would accept African American customers).

Later roles in the 2010s and ’20s

In the acclaimed animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Ali voiced the title character’s uncle. He also successfully lobbied for the lead role of the television series True Detective, portraying a police officer investigating the disappearance of two children in the show’s third season (2019). For his performance Ali received his second Emmy nomination. In 2020 he appeared in Ramy Youssef’s TV series Ramy (2019– ), and his portrayal of a Sufi leader earned him another Emmy nod. Ali later starred in Swan Song (2021), a sci-fi movie about a dying man who, in order to protect his loved ones, keeps his condition a secret and contemplates cloning himself.

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In 2023 Ali lent his voice to the sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and appeared alongside Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke in the psychological thriller Leave the World Behind. Two years later he played a member of a crew searching for genetically mutated dinosaurs in Jurassic Park Rebirth. In 2026 Ali starred in the action drama Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother as a devout Muslim who works as a hit man.