Kevin D. Kinsey

Mahershala Ali is an American actor that began his career as a regular on series such as Crossing Jordan before his breakthrough role as “Richard Tyler” in the science-fiction series The 4400. For his performance in the 2016 film as drug dealer Juan in Moonlight (2016), Ali received universal acclaim from critics and was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award and won all three, the Oscar Award, the SAG Award and the Critic’s Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor.  The movie Moonlight went on to receive the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture in Drama and Ali also received the NAACP Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture.

In Ali’s acceptance remarks, his response was “I think what I’ve learned from working on Moonlight is we see what happened when you persecute people – they fold into themselves,” he said. “And what I was so grateful about in having the opportunity to play Juan was playing a gentlemen who saw a young man folding into himself as a result of the persecution of his community, and taking the opportunity to uplift him and tell him that he mattered, that he was okay, and accept him. I hope that we do a better job of that.” “When we kind of get caught up in the minutiae, the details that make us 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,” he added. “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 and the love has grown. And that stuff is minutiae. It’s not that important.”

Ali has been a familiar face along the awards show circuit this season, nabbing an Oscar nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, and a Critics’ Choice win for his role in the moving Barry Jenkins drama. Though he’s been nominated for five other SAG Awards as a member of ensemble casts, this is his first solo nomination and win.