Taking a break from politics, today's topic is how the best actor in America went looking for a starring role.
Mahershala Ali is one of only seven actors to win Oscars in their first two nominations. Local folks will also remember him starring in a project produced here in Northwest Arkansas, HBO's latest installment of True Detective.
I looked up Ali's career summary on the Internet Movie Database after he won the best actor Oscar in February. I was surprised to see no future projects on it after True Detective. Then I thought about it. Then the surprise fell away.
I remembered reading about Lou Gossett Jr. He won the best supporting actor Oscar in 1982. He expected offers for other roles. The roles did not come, at least not good ones. Earlier, Gossett had done a superb job playing Fiddler in the acclaimed TV miniseries Roots.
Both Ali and Gossett are African-American.
Ali won his best actor Oscar for Green Book. The movie was controversial, especially after the film won the best picture award. Noted director Spike Lee famously started to walk out of the Oscar ceremony, then turned his back as the film's producers accepted the award. Green Book has been criticized as a cloying feel-good movie about race in America.
Vanity Fair interviewed Ali after the awards. Asked why he accepted the Green Book role, Ali replied it was the best role offered to him at the time. It was a starring role, one with lines.
"After acting for 25 years, I got my first opportunity to carry a project," he said.
Consider how remarkable that statement is. Ali had already won the Oscar for best supporting actor when he got the Green Book role. He won that first Oscar in a movie very few people saw in theaters, Moonlight. That was the first time he had ever been nominated for the award. Yet the best offer he had on the table was one he must have known would be considered fluff by some and offensive fluff by some of those.
I saw Green Book in the theater. I would have bought a ticket to see Ali and co-star Viggo Mortensen act in a beer commercial. Calling Green Book the worst movie to win best picture goes too far, but parts of it made me cringe. No disrespect to the crew who made a technically fine film, but that movie won best picture by riding too much on the shoulders of its two stars.
So after winning two acting Oscars in three years and, along with his co-star, practically dragging a "best picture" across the finish line, Ali had no movie projects at all, according to the movie database. He is, by all accounts, a thorough professional with no turmoil in his private life.
Fortunately, Ali's story diverges from Gossett's from there. Ali called Marvel Studios after his best actor Oscar win and asked for a meeting. Kevin Feige, president of the studio and the most successful movie producer alive, agreed. He said later in interviews: "And when Mahershala wants to meet, you take the meeting."
Ali, by Feige's account, came right to the point. He wanted to play Blade, a character in Marvel's stable of comic book heroes and a major movie character in previous years. He wanted to revive the role. Of course Marvel agreed. Feige and Ali announced the project on July 20.
Assuming all goes well -- a safe assumption, considering Marvel's track record -- the best actor in America is about to become very financially secure. I would prefer to see him play the lead in Macbeth, even if the setting was taken from Scotland to the Caribbean. Orson Welles did so in a 1936 staging of the play with an African-American cast. But hey, if seeing Ali play a superpowered vampire killer is the best I will get, I will take it.
Speaking of great talent and not letting it all go to waste, Green Book is about musician Don Shirley. Shirley's recordings are available for download thanks to modern tech. He never got much of a chance to record the classical music he was born to play, but the jazz he was forced into by his record company is pretty good. I am no jazz fan, but critics who are say it shows immense talent.
Commentary on 08/24/2019