Movie fans were excited at the prospect of Mahershala Ali joining the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe as the lethal daywalker, Blade. However, after delays and dealings shielded from the public eye, Mahershala Ali is moving on from the role and focusing on other endeavors.
Mahershala Ali sat down with GQ for a conversation regarding his latest role in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother from director and screenwriter Bassam Tariq, who coincidentally was contracted to direct the film in 2021 but stepped down after production delays.
Both Ali and Tariq sat down with GQ to discuss Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother, but there is no secret that most wanted to know what Ali thought regarding his decision to relax his hopes of playing Blade.
From GQ:
We’ve mentioned Your Mother’s connection to Blade throughout our chat, and Marvel boss Kevin Feige recently made headlines by declaring that he feels like a “failure” for not getting your film off the ground. Mahershala, are we any closer to Blade finally becoming a reality?
Ali: Not with me. The best way I can answer this question is, when I look at what is for me, is it was either this or that—and I’ll take this. No offense to them. I’ve been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not. For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother feels very much in alignment with the type of work I want to be known for. I don’t really want to be known for remakes. I’d love to do original work that resonates with people and impacts them in unique ways.
So, I’m good. [Laughs.] Again, you had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie. So we’re not doing the movie. When I look at this and Blade, I couldn’t have done both, and the reason this even exists is because that project fell apart and Bassam had the time, space, energy, and focus to go and write this and then re-approach me. And I was able to use those skills that I had been working on for over a year training for Blade. In that way, I feel creatively redeemed on some level, just in my own journey between me, myself, and I. But I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.
Check out the full interview here.
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Photo: Getty
