I think how strict my mother's home could be with my mom and my stepfather, there was a fluidity and freedom in my dad's existence that I enjoyed when I was around him, though the responsibility was just different. He expected me to carry myself a certain way without all the rules and confines.
Mahershala AliWhen we kind of get caught up in the minutiae, the details that make us all 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.
Mahershala AliIt felt like it disrupted my rhythm in growing up. But I will say that I'm really grateful for [my mother's] own personal transition.
Mahershala AliI think my mom gave me the borders, the - gave me a very clear understanding of what the perimeter was. And I had to find my fun within those boundaries.
Mahershala AliI think what I've learned from working on "Moonlight" is we see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves.
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