Mahershala Ali

0:01Into the wild, the Cartier Panther encounters a shimmering crocodile, a lonely lovebird, a breathless zebra, and a restless tiger.

0:16You're a two-time Oscar winner. Yeah. It's crazy to hear you feel like the industry doesn't understand me, and also I get hired and not listened to. It happens. Trust me. Trust me. Hi, I'm Zach Barron, and this is One More Question. My guest this week is the actor and two-time Oscar winner, Mahershala Ali. This was a meaningful one for me. As you'll hear us talk about in our interview, Mahershala and I first met in 2016, right around the time Moonlight came out. I saw him a few times that fall, and I'll never forget the sensation of watching someone's life change in real time. In my life, I've interviewed a lot of people.

0:56But Mahershala stood out then and stands out now as an exceptionally honest, decent person. It just radiates off him. As a journalist, you're not really supposed to root for the people you write about or interview. But man, I root for Mahershala. In this conversation, we talked about life after winning two Oscars, about the Blade film that never happened, and about parenting. One of us cries at one point. I'll let you listen and find out who. So here's my conversation with Mahershala Ali.

1:50Thank you. I have met once or twice before. Little history. Little history. In 2016, I interviewed you for GQ. I think it was a week after Moonlight came out. Yeah. We were in Venice. Yeah. In my memory, what I remember is it was just, it was like still quiet. Yeah. What do you remember about that time? Yeah, it was like the first trimester of almost giving birth to yourself on a certain level. It was just quiet. and um i could feel and see the potential i kind of knew what we had i feel everyone felt like we had done something special we felt like we when we were shooting it it felt special you know and so starting to experience people experiencing it was really beautiful because it kind of felt like you had this secret that was starting to be shared and people were all kind of feeling similarly about it So it was a really beautiful time because it was just so ripe with potential.

2:57And someone like myself, I wasn't new to the business I'd been around for. My first movie was Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I'd shot 10 years prior to that. So it wasn't necessarily new to me, but I think that there was so much energy on my end and anticipation because I kind of felt like finally I was in something and a part of something where everything was sort of, felt like it was going to align. And that essentially happened. Yeah, well, I saw you later that fall. I think you came to a GQ party or maybe it was some awards thing. And I felt like every time I saw you that fall, you were slightly more tired.

3:41Slightly more dazed. Probably slightly thinner. Slightly thinner. i think i was like i'm watching someone's life change in real time yes yes and then i had a baby on the way to where like my wife was pregnant you know so it was like because my daughter was born four days before the award so yeah that was there was a lot a lot happening do you remember like your mind state like were you were you like when i say your life was changing was it changing for better i think it was definitely changing for the better but it i think it that type of change challenges everything and everyone around you you know because in what way it's a funny thing because people will say oh don't change right to anyone who has some sort of huge experience or there's this expectation for you not to change but when you realize very quickly that everything around you changes so it almost be like if you're living life in winter and then suddenly it's 90 degrees outside, if you don't take that peacoat or parka off, like you actually will look crazy.

4:44You will feel crazy and be crazy as a result of not changing so that you might need to know what to let go of or what to put on so that you can actually be sane in the environment because you are not permitted to continue to approach things the way that you approached things before because the world around you is different. So I just think there's a little bit of shock around just how different the world started to feel and i had to give myself permission to to sort of like follow my instincts within that and i'm still adjusting and adapting to things as a result of how different my life sort of became and you were 42 i think yeah because it's like oh you know like i'm a fully formed yeah if you're 22 it's like it's whatever yeah but 42 that's that's a big change at a already formed time of life 100 you've been acting like 16 years at that point already and i think i think you compared to these like it was like holding a sneeze in for 16 years yeah i mean what was that feeling like like and when did you kind of let it go i think in some ways i'm probably just now starting to like let certain things go because I think I've begun to let go of my expectations of the world and the business.

6:05It's kind of like you're fighting with people to see you how you see yourself. And even when they start doing that, you realize you still don't get it. And you're constantly trying to explain yourself to people or explain your taste or explain your instincts. And people are hiring you for your instincts, but then not respecting your instincts. So part of me, I feel like there's been this larger letting go as of late and giving over more so to the things I can control and letting go of the things that I can't control. So I have, I think, a lot more clarity around things I want to do, the type of people I want to work with.

6:47So I think now, moving forward, I think my internal GPS just feels a little, feels like I can locate where I want to go. It's crazy. You're a two-time Oscar winner. Yeah. It's crazy to hear you feel like the industry doesn't understand me, and also I get hired and not listened to. It happens. Trust me. Trust me. If you represented me, you'd get sick of hearing me. Being like, they're not listening. Not only, yeah. I don't want this interview to go the wrong way or get into dipping too negative, but it's a very frustrating experience. You got to realize, too, there's a lot of turnover in these spaces, And there's people that come from spaces that are not necessarily creative that end up power to make or break projects.

7:37And these companies are constantly being bought up all the time. So everything's changing all the time. And so I think you're constantly having to reintroduce yourself to people that you feel like technically you should be known by or there should be some sort of natural reciprocity or give and take. And I don't know if, I don't know why I constantly feel like I have to like remind people of stuff or prove myself to people. But that's just how this business works. And like it exhausts me. And so then you start thinking about how long do I have to do this this way or do it at all, you know, kind of thing.

8:13Really? For sure. So for me, then it goes more to like, where's the happy place? Where is the happy place? It's doing great work, you know, or being around people where there's the potential to do great work and just really getting back to story. But it's hard to remind yourself of that because I think the more on some level, the more success I've had, the more protective I've been and want to be very. Conscious around the choices I make and what I lend my energies to before I like start rambling too much. I mean, you told me, I think it's interesting in the context of what you're just saying.

8:51Another thing you told me then, I remember, was you were like, I spent a lot of years being afraid that I wasn't going to be able to live my dream. And I was like, what is your dream? And you're like, basically to lead a movie. Yeah. And you had had success. You were on House of Cards. I remember when we were in Venice, like I was like the Luke Cage who was extremely excited to see you. But you were like, I know, I know. Like you were like, put me in coach. Yeah. Your mother, your mother, your mother. I had to like check this three times like it could be like it's only your second or third leading performance.

9:24Two. Two right after a swan song. Yeah. Which admittedly is two leads in one. But how's that possible? That's what I'm saying. I don't know. Like I just I don't lose too much sleep over it. i feel i feel taken care of you know um and i feel like i'm the type of person where if you get it you get it if you get me you get me and i think we'll probably have a great time working together you know if the respect is mutual but when i feel supported and seen i definitely do my best work yeah and i feel like my energy always comes ready to try to uplift, improve the story, like elevate the character. I want things to, I want things, I approach something not to meet it where it's at.

10:11I always approach it going like, can I improve it? You know, that's always my goal. Yeah. I'm conscious and I'm specific about the things I do, the folks I want to work with. And, and I, I don't think anything's going to change that. And I think if anything, if once I've, at times when I've kind of like relaxed on that those are the things that kind of have quietly i feel like have proven to kind of bite me in the ass you know and i'm not mad at that either because all right good to know i want and that's why i can say that because of the the experiences that i've had professionally i've been working 26 years now there's a part of me that feels newly formed it's a part of me that feels like like oh okay I get it now and I think I have calluses in the right places yeah so yeah I'm not I'm not taking this stuff as personally as that's recent like I know I don't want to speak like I've had this figured out yeah but I just think my nature it's very difficult as an actor because you're you can't be good at your job unless you are deeply empathetic but then there's something in the world and in this business that tells you to shut that off when you're not on screen or maybe you're naturally an empathetic person and you find yourself as an artist or an actor and then suddenly you turn that off when you're not technically working, I feel sensitive in life.

11:36There's a learned response to being, to having the feelings that I have in response to experiences that I've had where those calluses have had to form begrudgingly, if that makes sense. But I still am trying to make sure that you don't become callous so that you lose the connection with the work once it's time to allow those things to live safely in a space that is very productive for those feelings to be in, right? So that's been more of the challenge for me over the course of, especially the last 10 years, is to be able to differentiate, protect my empathy and my sensitivities from some of the business experiences that really don't care about your feelings.

12:19You're an astronaut. Like, you went for Moonlight, and you win an Oscar. Two years later, you win an Oscar for Green Book. In the moment after the second one, again, you're like a deeply feeling person. You've had this crazy industry experience that basically very few people have ever had. What are you walking around feeling and thinking? Oh, man. I think that I felt, I felt, it's strange to admit, but I kind of felt like a bit of a, I was having this golden boy experience after Moonlight. And the tough lesson was I learned very quickly after Green Book, there can be an equal energy to sort of like, not even undercut, but to like really question and pick one apart.

13:05Really? Like what do you mean by that? Oh man, I think because of like certain controversies around that film, they still write articles bashing that film. There are still people who got stuff to say about that film when, I don't know, I've seen some other films that I have something to say about if we really want to go there talking about Green Book that have done very well at the Academy. But I just think that there were, these things are not fresh for people and audiences because it's kind of what people do. Something comes out, they either love it or hate it or something in between and they pick things apart for various reasons.

13:40Sometimes those reasons are super legitimate. I'm not discounting some of the criticisms around Green Book or some of the stuff. But I think for me personally, to be involved in something, being so hyper-conscious throughout my career. I even said no when I couldn't afford to say no at certain times, like coming up. Your Queer House of Cartons. Even before that, there were shows that I had was offered that technically probably was a good job, but it just didn't feel like where I was trying to go. And I knew in 2000 that coming right out of school, One Life to Live, wasn't right for me. You know what I'm saying?

14:15But I got a good offer to go do that. I needed that money. But my point is, sometimes things can go in a way where you just don't control that. And so I felt like whatever had kind of happened from the moonlight of it all, I feel like so much came into question for me after Green Book. and a way in which certain people responded to that that I felt impacted by. I definitely felt impacted by. And how did you react to that? Did that change the way you made decisions? Did that change the way you thought about your career? I think it made me—I think my nature is a little bit like a cat, a bit where I kind of have to feel spaces out.

14:55Once you're comfortable in the space, you're like, okay. And you'll see a cat. He or she will have real ownership of their space, but they tuck away. at a moment like so i think that's my nature is a little like feel things out and i think i felt i actually grew to feel relatively comfortable and then i think the response to green book and around some people that from some people that i had admired it made me uncomfortable in the space and i was even grateful for that because it was a reminder not to sort of fall asleep here's the list of actors who have more acting wins than you yeah katherine hepburn meryl streep jack Nick Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Francis McDormand, Sean Penn, Walter Brennan.

15:35That's it. It's five living actors. I don't even have a question. I just think that's cool. I think that's pretty cool. I guess if it were a question, it would be, do you recognize yourself in that company? I don't think about myself like that. I just, you know, in a part, I just, I feel like I got so much work to do. I don't know what is for me in the future, but I really do. I feel like I'm discovering so much when I'm working.

16:14Into the wild, the Caltier Panther encounters a shimmering crocodile, a lonely lovebird, a breathless zebra, and a restless tiger.

16:29Are you ready to push your baking skills? This month at Bon Appetit Bake Club, we are making glazed apple pie fritters. I'm Shilpoz Kokovic. And I'm Jessi Sepchak. And we're senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit and the hosts of BA's Bake Club podcast. Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident, curious bakers. Every month, we publish a recipe on bonappetit.com that introduces a baking concept we think you should know. Then you'll go bake and send us any questions you have. And we'll get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe. And if you want to master deep frying, this is your chance.

17:03Head to BA.com or our sub stack and come and bake along with us. Join us the first Tuesday of every month as we debrief about our latest bake. Find BA Bake Club or wherever you get your podcasts. Happy baking.

17:22here's a list of films you've done since since green book yeah same year you do spider-man it's a spider-verse 2019 alita battle angel 2021 swan song yeah 2023 leave the world behind 2025 jurassic world rebirth and now your mother your mother your mother i don't want to be greedy but that's like five films in eight years. That should have been six or seven. I just didn't, Blade didn't happen, which I felt like definitely impacted how things unfold in your trajectory. So you were saving time for that film? I wasn't saving. Once it was happening, I was working on it. I was doing what I needed to do to prepare myself.

18:03It just didn't happen. And I don't write, I'm not writing. This is a place where you don't have to dwell, but why not? That's a Kevin Feige question. They had, as you said, a two-time Oscar-winning actor under contract, and you got billions of dollars. That's a question for them, like, why it didn't happen. I don't mean that in anything personal to you, but I don't know why it did. To this day, I don't know why it didn't happen. I just know that it was—Kevin, he said it was the biggest failure of his career, and I agree. The quote was, I feel like a giant loser and failure for not getting off the ground.

18:36I agree with him. I agree with him. 100%. 100%. He should feel that way. And so some of that time that we're talking about is accounted for? 100%. I spent a year training. Yeah. I trained so hard till I blew my knee out. No way. Like I was just waiting for them to, oh, pushing it back, pushing it back, pushing it. I'm still training. I'm training. I'm learning sword work. I'm learning like name of martial art. I'm training in it. I literally moved, uprooted my family, moved to Atlanta. We're there waiting to go. And they just keep pushing it back, pushing it back, pushing it, and we don't, it doesn't happen.

19:09So when it's - Then it's a strike. And then, you know, so - So when it's five and it's supposed to be eight, that's kind of what happens. I went to them in 2019. That was my first meeting. We're at Comic-Con by 2019 in the summer. I didn't want to make no announcements. I don't believe in the announcements. Like you just do the work and then it's like, okay you announced the work is done right but all this like anticipatory stuff is not i'm not a fan of that at all but they want to do all that we did all that and had a story greenlit and then we don't have any deliverables and i don't i can't deliver until they deliver right yeah so that's not a secret otherwise we'd have a movie so yeah yeah otherwise it'd be six movies or seven you know yeah yeah and then i'm saying no to things in that time because they own my schedule Really?

19:57Okay. I've seen you say like the weird thing about becoming more successful is that somehow you work less. You get to do it that much, you know, because so much goes into the decision and what you're working on, who you're working with and getting certain things right, which is kind of like just my nature in general. But the stakes could kind of feel high after you start being recognized for your work in a certain way, which they've always felt high for me just in general. and i still have my goals and my aspirations and but honestly you wouldn't even be able to ask that question on some level if by 2023 we were shooting something that was announced four years earlier right like that's so much time and then we should be on the second one by now but i will say to sort of bring it back around to actually how more i'm feeling in the moment is i'm actually grateful it didn't happen because i don't think we would get this film i know we wouldn't get this film with me your mother your mother your mother which is directed by the director that was originally attached to the blade project the somnitri and when i look at the benefits of what i got to do opposed to what i thought i was supposed to do i honestly feel creatively i feel fulfilled by your mother what i think the marvel of it all taught me is that i hadn't really it was kind of the opposite of why i wanted to get off a house of cards first of all i could tell that part wasn't growing it was almost felt like it was kind of getting smaller and I was like I felt frustrated by that because I felt like oh I wanted to move into this leading man space that I'd been sort of fighting so hard to kind of get to and dreaming of at that time I was living in New York and like walking around in Brooklyn and people being like yo Remy like once people knew my character name and could identify me with something yeah that scared me a bit because I think I really prided myself on at least working to be transformational and working to be different in different things and so the idea of someone just being able to be like say they've seen you in ten things but they go oh you're that character that one that made me a little nervous and then two I think after the whole Marvel announcement you realize there's a lot of people who really don't really know your work like that but could go oh you're playing blade or that's blade like I started getting that sure I'd done a day of work on it and I realized that this sort of almost anticipatory fame almost or something around that felt really unfamiliar to me so you almost felt creatively in debt yeah you know yeah i mean like oh we're ready for this thing that we like we know it's gonna be it has to be x y and z which we want everything to be good but i had never experienced someone like labeling you as a character feeling like this is what you're supposed to do this is what you're supposed to be able to be before it even comes out.

22:48So I feel like the, just for my nature, I think the blessing in disguise for me is that it sort of like removes me out of that space of being, and there's only one space where people become that type of famous and it's in the Marvel world, right? After things begin to sort of undo and I had to start like divesting energetically, I felt - It's a beautiful phrase, by the way. I felt okay about it because in looking back, you know, I really want to be someone who originates things. This film is like the polar opposite of that in every way. And even like I think by the standards of like modern Hollywood where you don't really get films sort of this original.

23:28Like not just like script wise but also sort of tonally like the way it's shot. Yeah. The way it's sort of like comedy but very dramatic at some parts. Almost melodrama at times. It can be big. Yeah. I imagine there are people around you that were like, that's a little too original, man. I don't know about this. You know what? Maybe. Maybe. But I would much rather err in that space. Yeah. And to be one of those genre-defining films, potentially, that for better or for worse, people just sort of, I love that but, or I just love that, or I hated it. Cool. But you can't say it was like anything else.

24:06Yeah. I lean heavily into that space. And so these for me are, I hope, proving to be like really good lessons. It has helped me get clarity on not only the type of projects I want to work on, but the type of like directors, executives, studios, like the people who have a certain type of like passion for storytelling and filmmaking and supporting of like talent's instincts. and especially in a time when they clearly don't know what people want because people are not going to the movies like they used to go to so you can't tell me certainly certainly not for the for the marvell films right right it's so or whoever i'm not even speaking marvel yeah but actually it's true i think in some ways like you know the big stories this year is like people go see obsession and they go see that's and audiences are going to that stuff yeah over the other things at this point it feels like yeah and this feels very in keeping with that of like what if we just made a movie.

25:05You don't recognize the character. You don't know the story already. But it, you know, you and I were talking before we started rolling about being parents. I have two kids. You have one. This isn't the only thing that the movie's about. One of the things that I really liked about it was like, it was just like being a dad is hard. Yeah. You don't get to see that much, right? I mean, I was like, you're not even really supposed to say it. It's funny. Right, right, right. But I wonder if somehow your experiences as a father had like fed into your desire to do the film? I think my experiences as a father made me very grateful to get to do this film.

25:40It's a really wonderful responsibility to be tasked with articulating something you're familiar with, but not knowing all of it. Like I don't know everything about being a dad. I do the best that I can. I hope my daughter will grow up, God willing, and be like, I had an amazing dad, you know, but I don't know if I'm always doing things right, but you kind of do the best you can. Lateef, I don't think he has the grace for himself that I think I'm speaking to for my own self right at this moment, but I think Lateef ends up there. I know the tenets of being a father, but getting to step into Lateef's world specifically and be the type of father he has to be is a mystery to me.

26:24Getting to navigate his responsibilities moment to moment and all the stressors and even being a widow, I know pieces of those things. I know grief in my own way. I know fatherhood in my own way. I know being overwhelmed in my own way. I know God in my own way and community in my own way. So all these attributes that can come together, that need to come together and stitch together to play Latif, I'm familiar with. And so that's the joy in wrestling with a character like that is working day to day to make it all make sense and hopefully be somebody that resonates with you once, you know, those credits roll.

27:15Into the wild, the Cartier Panther encounters a shimmering crocodile, a lonely lovebird, a breathless zebra, and a restless tiger.

27:31Are you ready to push your baking skills? This month at Bon Appetit Bake Club, we are making glazed apple pie fritters. I'm Shilpoz Kokovic. And I'm Jessi Sepcek. And we're senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit and the hosts of BA's Bake Club podcast. Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident, curious bakers. Every month, we publish a recipe on bonappetit.com that introduces a baking concept we think you should know. Then you'll go bake and send us any questions you have. And we'll get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe. And if you want to master deep frying, this is your chance.

28:05Head to BA.com or our sub stack and come and bake along with us. Join us the first Tuesday of every month as we debrief about our latest bake. Find BA Bake Club or wherever you get your podcasts. Happy baking.

28:24We don't know each other like this, but you've been pretty open about your kind of relationship with your father, who was a showbiz guy, too. I don't want to mischaracterize it, but it seemed like more or less shows the work over the family. I don't know if that's a fair way to put it. You know... He was on Broadway. He worked in New York City. You grew up on the West Coast. You know, I think about that sometime. And there's so much to my dad's story. When I think about somebody who's like 20 years old when he moves to New York, something I mentioned earlier, it's like, there's a moment where you're sort of like giving birth to yourself.

29:01Like you kind of are conscious enough to go, oh, this is what I need to be to be able to even be here for other people, you know? And so I think that there is, there's a way in which I think of him, especially the time in which we got to spin together, I almost think more of him being honest about who he was, what he was pursuing. In some way as your child, it's like a paying it forward type of thing. I learned more from him being exactly who he needed to be than I would have learned from him sort of editing his experience and staying home in the Bay Area. When I know all the things I know about my father, the things that make him him, he needed to do exactly what he did.