Quotes from Mahershala Ali

I've never seen 'Gone with the Wind.' I don't know if that's something to be embarrassed about, but I know that I should have seen that movie by now.

I thought, 'I've been doing this for 16 years professionally. I have a window where I want to play leading parts.'

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.

People do bad things, but that doesn't mean they don't have other colors or qualities.

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.

Social media has colonized what was once a sacred space occupied by emptiness: the space reserved for thought and creativity.

Cottonmouth is the result of having to react to his circumstances. He had to, in some ways, take control of the situation and own his circumstances. But as a result of that, he became a person he didn't intend to become.

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.

I think Don Cheadle has always done great work.

People are really paying attention to the comic-book genre, and there's a lot of time and attention being invested in these projects with a wonderful sense of quality control.

It's a lot of wonderful things about the Bay area and Oakland that I absolutely love. I wouldn't change being from there by any stretch.

It's important for people of colour to have the opportunities to play characters that are as nuanced - as three-dimensional, as human - as the characters who we traditionally see getting to play the protagonist. The good guys and the bad guys. The reason that is important is because it's a better reflection of the reality of the world we live in.

If you're throwing someone off a roof, you're throwing them off the roof. It's there. You don't have to do anything extra with that. The audience is obviously going to react to that because it's such a heightened thing to do. But in the other moments, you really look for ways to craft those, because they're more important, honestly.

Oakland, by far, is really gorgeous; it still has these pockets that are really dangerous. Certain things are kind of normal. I think kids out there can be tested in a way where his right of passage ties into a bit of violence and how that has become these markers in masculinity and you being kind of validated after having to pass through things.

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.

If you convert to Islam after a couple of decades of being a black man in the U.S., the discrimination you receive as a Muslim doesn't feel like a shock.

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.

Cultures and races are mixing in a very organic way in the world, and that should be reflected in film and television.

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.

You want entertainment in general, every aspect of it, to be more of a reflection of the diverse world that we live in.

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.

Hollywood has to be a better reflection of the world we live in.

We live in diverse communities with all sorts of people from all sorts of different backgrounds. The more our entertainment can be a reflection of the world we live in, the better it is for all of us.

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.