The release of Jurassic World Rebirth, the latest addition to the never-ending franchise, has reminded us of a few things: dinosaur movies will always make lots of money, Jonathan Bailey looks great in his slutty little glasses, and Mahershala Ali is one of our finest actors.
That last part shouldn’t be a massive surprise. After all, Ali is a two-time Oscar winner who has been a familiar face on our screens for over two decades. He was a TV regular across multiple TV series like The 4400 and Treme before sweeping awards season with Moonlight. He’s never stopped working, but after his second Oscar win for Green Book it did feel like he disappeared for a while. Okay, he did some voice work in stuff like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and worked with Julia Roberts, but surely a guy with that much hardware on his shelves should be omnipresent in our lives? And surely he should be getting way more leading roles with amazing directors who know how to use him properly?
When Ali was cemented as the Best Supporting Actor victor in waiting for his performance as Juan in Moonlight, it was a long overdue breakthrough to the mainstream. He doesn’t have a ton of screentime in this astonishing drama about a gay Black teen’s coming of age, but he commands your attention. Juan is a drug dealer who becomes a loving mentor to Chiron, a much-needed alternative to his drug addicted mother, but also a guilty party in her descent into dependency. Ali does so much without descending into theatrics or even raising his voice that much. Juan is stoic but not unfeeling, a man trying to make do in a crooked society who is troubled by his own willing participation in making things worse. When Juan admits to Chiron that he deals drugs and sells them to his mother, the way he hangs his head in shame is devastating. It’s rare for performances this lived-in and subtle to be Oscar winners, but Ali was just that undeniable.
All of Ali’s talent was evident to those paying attention to his many years as a reliable supporting player in almost every TV show of the 2000s and 2010s. Before Moonlight, he had caught our attention with the one-two punch of House of Cards and Luke Cage. In the latter, he’s so damn charismatic and scene-stealing that you almost wish the entire show was about him. His quiet magnetism is unique, especially in shows where he’s standing alongside show-boaters like, ugh, Kevin Spacey.
Of course, we can’t talk about this issue without addressing the vampire in the room. Well, technically, the vampire was never in the room and that’s the problem. In July 2019, Ali appeared at San Diego Comic-Con during the Marvel panel to announce that he would play Blade in the MCU. What perfect casting, right? He’s stoic but magnetic, gorgeous and athletic. This couldn’t have been better chosen unless they’d found an actual vampire for the role. Cut to six years later and it seems the project is all but dead thanks to an endless cycle of ‘creative differences.’ Directors and writers would be hired then replaced. Actors signed up then dropped out. Eventually, the movie was pulled from Marvel’s release schedule. Kevin Feige insists that they remain committed to the project but it really does feel like they’ve missed the boat and left Ali hanging in the process. It should have been a slam dunk to make an R-rated vampire action movie starring Mahershala Ali. With Sinners making money hand over fist, Marvel’s own failures seem even grander.
Ali seems to have spent a long time waiting for this project to come to fruition. Such is the nightmarish conundrum of a multi-film Marvel contract: so much waiting, and often for naught. It feels like we haven’t gotten as many Ali projects that have given him the space and material to build upon his immense range. It’s not been a total desert of options, mercifully. He was magnetic in the underseen third season of True Detective and was excellent in the second season of Ramy as the hot sheikh who Ramy clings to for guidance. While he hasn’t been offered as many great leading roles as he is surely owed, his status as one of the sturdiest supporting players in the business remains unchallenged.
One cannot help but wonder if the film industry also balks at the idea of a dark-skinned Muslim actor who speaks openly about his support for Palestine and has a name many of them refuse to learn how to pronounce properly. It still feels telling that his second Oscar win was for a white-saviour ‘true story’ that treated a very real man like a prop in a racist’s story and was repeatedly called out as false by his living family members. This is not to blame Ali for taking the role. We’ve seen how often the greatest Black actors of their eras are still unable to escape the stereotypes and historical rewrites. It’s just hard to ignore how much actors like Ali seem confined to impossibly small spaces for no good reason.
Wouldn’t it be great to see Ali headline a Spike Lee movie, or work with directors like Kogonada, Jeremy Saulnier, and Nia DaCosta? Maybe bring him back to TV for something in the vein of Noah Wyle’s role in The Pitt or a meaty comedic part akin to Jean Smart in Hacks. As much as I have stopped caring about Marvel, I do still crave his Blade because he was so passionate about the project. This is an actor who, by merit of both talent and awards wins, should be able to command any project he desires. We’re failing him by not letting Mahershala be Mahershala.
