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Mahershala Ali
Mahershala Ali (/məˈhɜːrʃələ/ mə-HUR-shə-lə; born Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore on February 16, 1974) is an American actor. He has received multiple accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Films in which he has appeared have grossed over $3.3 billion worldwide. In 2020, The New York Times ranked him among the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.
After pursuing an MFA degree from New York University, Ali began his career as a regular on television series Crossing Jordan (2001–2002) and Threat Matrix (2003–2004), before his breakthrough role as Richard Tyler in the science fiction series The 4400 (2004–2007). His first major film role was in the David Fincher-directed fantasy The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). He gained wider attention for supporting roles in the final two films of the original The Hunger Games film series, and in House of Cards, for which he received his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Ali won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as a drug dealer in Moonlight (2016) and as Don Shirley in Green Book (2018), becoming the first black actor to win two Academy Awards in the same category, and the second black actor to win multiple acting Oscars. Ali won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program for executive producing We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest (2020).
In 2019, he played a troubled police officer in the third season of the HBO anthology crime series True Detective and in 2020, he starred in the second season of the Hulu comedy-drama series Ramy. He was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards for both performances. Ali has also played Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes in the first season of the Netflix series Luke Cage (2016), and voiced Aaron Davis in the animated films Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023).
Ali was born in Oakland, California, on February 16, 1974, to Willicia Goines and Phillip Gilmore. His birth name, Mahershalalhashbaz, is from Maher-shalal-hash-baz, the name of the prophet Isaiah's second child (chapter 8, Book of Isaiah). Ali was raised as a Christian in Hayward, California, by his mother, an ordained Baptist minister whose own mother, Evia Goines, was herself an ordained minister at Palma Ceia Baptist Church in Hayward. His father left the family when Ali was a toddler to pursue a career as a dancer. He appeared on Broadway and died in 1994.
Ali attended Saint Mary's College of California (SMC) in Moraga, California, where he graduated in 1996 with a degree in mass communication as a first-generation college student. He entered SMC with a basketball scholarship and went by the name "Hershal Gilmore" when playing for the SMC Gaels. He became disenchanted with the idea of a sports career because of the treatment given to the team's athletes and developed an interest in acting, particularly after taking part in a staging of Spunk, which later landed him an apprenticeship at the California Shakespeare Theater following graduation. After a sabbatical year working for Gavin Report, he enrolled in New York University's graduate acting program at Tisch School of the Arts, earning his master's degree in 2000.
Ali was known professionally by his full name, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, from 2001 until 2010, when he began to be credited as Mahershala Ali. Ali had considered shortening his name for a while, saying that using his full first name was "a crazy thing to do considering that we're in Hollywood", although he had never been pressured by managers or agents to change it. He decided to use a shorter version of his first name after being told that his full name was too long to fit on the poster for the film The Place Beyond the Pines. He did not want the alternative of M. Ali to represent himself on the poster, so he chose to adopt the shorter version of his name.
He elaborated in an interview to Vanity Fair in October 2016:
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Mahershala Ali
Mahershala Ali (/məˈhɜːrʃələ/ mə-HUR-shə-lə; born Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore on February 16, 1974) is an American actor. He has received multiple accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Films in which he has appeared have grossed over $3.3 billion worldwide. In 2020, The New York Times ranked him among the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.
After pursuing an MFA degree from New York University, Ali began his career as a regular on television series Crossing Jordan (2001–2002) and Threat Matrix (2003–2004), before his breakthrough role as Richard Tyler in the science fiction series The 4400 (2004–2007). His first major film role was in the David Fincher-directed fantasy The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). He gained wider attention for supporting roles in the final two films of the original The Hunger Games film series, and in House of Cards, for which he received his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Ali won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as a drug dealer in Moonlight (2016) and as Don Shirley in Green Book (2018), becoming the first black actor to win two Academy Awards in the same category, and the second black actor to win multiple acting Oscars. Ali won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program for executive producing We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest (2020).
In 2019, he played a troubled police officer in the third season of the HBO anthology crime series True Detective and in 2020, he starred in the second season of the Hulu comedy-drama series Ramy. He was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards for both performances. Ali has also played Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes in the first season of the Netflix series Luke Cage (2016), and voiced Aaron Davis in the animated films Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023).
Ali was born in Oakland, California, on February 16, 1974, to Willicia Goines and Phillip Gilmore. His birth name, Mahershalalhashbaz, is from Maher-shalal-hash-baz, the name of the prophet Isaiah's second child (chapter 8, Book of Isaiah). Ali was raised as a Christian in Hayward, California, by his mother, an ordained Baptist minister whose own mother, Evia Goines, was herself an ordained minister at Palma Ceia Baptist Church in Hayward. His father left the family when Ali was a toddler to pursue a career as a dancer. He appeared on Broadway and died in 1994.
Ali attended Saint Mary's College of California (SMC) in Moraga, California, where he graduated in 1996 with a degree in mass communication as a first-generation college student. He entered SMC with a basketball scholarship and went by the name "Hershal Gilmore" when playing for the SMC Gaels. He became disenchanted with the idea of a sports career because of the treatment given to the team's athletes and developed an interest in acting, particularly after taking part in a staging of Spunk, which later landed him an apprenticeship at the California Shakespeare Theater following graduation. After a sabbatical year working for Gavin Report, he enrolled in New York University's graduate acting program at Tisch School of the Arts, earning his master's degree in 2000.
Ali was known professionally by his full name, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, from 2001 until 2010, when he began to be credited as Mahershala Ali. Ali had considered shortening his name for a while, saying that using his full first name was "a crazy thing to do considering that we're in Hollywood", although he had never been pressured by managers or agents to change it. He decided to use a shorter version of his first name after being told that his full name was too long to fit on the poster for the film The Place Beyond the Pines. He did not want the alternative of M. Ali to represent himself on the poster, so he chose to adopt the shorter version of his name.
He elaborated in an interview to Vanity Fair in October 2016: