I was fortunately able to avoid getting into any trouble with police. There was - I remember I was 12, and I did something really (laughter) - a couple of friends, Cinco de Mayo - we were off school, and we saw some people looking like they were having a party. And we had a little bit too much time on our hands, and so we figured, as kids, a great idea would be to throw some things over the fence and hit all these people with stuff, like eggs and everything.
Mahershala AliI think in some ways, I would go back home, and I didn't really quite fit in and couldn't - didn't have a person to bounce those experiences off of. So I felt a little bit trapped within me, and it made me feel lonely because I really couldn't - the things that were exciting to me, I couldn't really share those with another kid and that other kid understand that.
Mahershala AliThis is 2003, 2004. And then I started - after the Patriot Act, I would always get my financial packages in the mail and they would just be opened. And it was like, what is going on here?
Mahershala AliI never wanted to accept that. And so I have always fought against that in some way, shape or form and had - I've had people who have supported trying to get me in for things that were beyond the character description.
Mahershala AliThere was things just like not being able to date or - I'm talking like 15, 16 - like just certain things that my friends started to do. Like, they started to get phone calls from girls or like, you know, go and hang out 10, 11 at night, kind of going to the movies. There were just certain things that - it's not that I couldn't do all of those things. It's just that every choice was really deliberate and conscious and thought out and sort of balanced against the religion in a way where I felt - I wasn't necessarily trying to convert at 12 like [my mother] was.
Mahershala Ali