Article Tag: Mahershala Ali

The reviewer asks us to "imagine having a queer Black protagonist in the '60s, a literal prodigy, living lavishly above the actual performance hall of the most iconic prodigies, who has his own throne room, and choosing to tell the story of his life from the racist white guy's perspective. Oh, what Ali could've done with a Dr. Shirley movie!" The review is accompanied by video clips where Peter Farrelly is asked why he chose to tell the story from Tony Lip's perspective, and Mahershala Ali is asked to explain how this is not a "White Savior" movie. She concludes, "we don't see Dr. Shirley's story in Green Book without Lip's lens. Without Lip, there is literally no movie. And perhaps that would've been best."

Insightful interview with Mahershala Ali. "Don Shirley had the capacity to play extraordinarily complicated music that was deemed white music. And it’s not that he’s not good enough to play it, he’s just not white enough to play it." When asked about combating racism, Ali pointed out that "You need to be able to have diversity in conversations about race. You can have Barry Jenkins and Spike Lee, but you all need to include a story like Green Book that may play a little lighter, where people don’t realize at first that they’re being challenged, because they may be laughing."

Interesting background information for the Green Book soundtrack explores Don Shirley's life and music and talks about how award-winning pianist and composer Kris Bowers worked to bring Shirley's music to life. Bowers wrote the original soundtrack for Green Book and taught Mahershala Ali to play an expert at the keyboard.

Mahershala Ali talked about how well he and Viggo Mortensen worked together on Green Book: “Viggo was great because he’s an extraordinary teammate. He was somebody who felt supportive of me doing my best work. I believe I tried to do the exact same thing with him." After Mortensen uttered the N-word while talking about race relations in a joint interview, he apologized, and Ali "accepted his castmate’s apology in a statement ... but noted that he did not condone his use of the controversial word."

Interesting video interview with Viggo Mortensen, Peter Farrelly, and Mahershala Ali focuses on the true story behind Green Book and how they hope it will impact the viewers. As Ali points out, Shirley didn’t have to tour the segregated American South. “Going down through the segregated South during this time was really a choice to put himself on the front line and expose the South and that community to a man that was educated, cultured and intelligent in a manner that went beyond the stereotypical point of view of a white Southerner at that time. He was there trying to push the boundaries by his sheer presence.” Mortensen says he expects people who watch the film will be "affected by what Mahershala’s character goes through, what we go through, and the lessons my character learns on this journey."

Speaking of his upcoming project Falling, where he will be directing for the first time, Viggo Mortensen said, "I've been very lucky. I've had some great teachers.... I've been in many good stories and I've worked with great directors.... No matter how different the tastes or the storytelling techniques of David Cronenberg or Matt Ross or Pete Farrelly, all of them share one thing in common: they're team players." He went on to talk about the kind of actors he wants to work with, mentioning Mahershala Ali as a sterling example.