'Moonlight' Star Mahershala Ali Wins First Academy Award and Makes Oscar History
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mahershala Ali won the best supporting actor Oscar on Sunday for his role as a drug-dealing mentor to an impoverished black boy in the intimate independent drama "Moonlight."
Ali, 43, plays Juan, a drug dealer who takes a young black boy living in Miami with a drug-addict mother, under his wing.
It
was the first Oscar win and nomination for Ali who was considered the
frontrunner in the category after winning a slew of earlier awards for
his performance.
Accepting the award on stage, Ali thanked his teachers.
"One
thing that they consistently told me ... is that it wasn't about you,"
Ali said. "It's not about you. It's about these characters. You are in
service to these stories and these characters."
In
"Moonlight," Ali's Juan teaches young Chiron to swim and encourages him
to not be weighed down by his environment but rather to carve his own
destiny.
Ali
also appeared in another Oscar-nominated movie this year, "Hidden
Figures," in which he plays a U.S.
colonel who woos Taraji P. Henson's
black female mathematician in the 1960s.
The
Oakland, California, actor is probably best known for playing former
White House Chief of Staff Remy Danton in Netflix's political drama
"House of Cards," and conniving Cottonmouth in Netflix's Marvel
superhero series "Luke Cage."
Ali's
career has spanned television, film and theater. He started out playing
a doctor on TV series "Crossing Jordan" in 2001, and since then has had
roles in dozens of projects including TV series "Treme" and "Alphas."
The 43-year-old actor won Best Supporting Actor at Sunday's Academy Awards for his performance in Moonlight, making him the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar.
"I
just want to thank my wife, who was in her third trimester during award
season," Ali said during his moving acceptance speech.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.