With the 2016 film Moonlight, Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar; he soon claimed another for Green Book in 2018. Ali forged his artistic path while attending St. Mary’s College of California on a basketball scholarship. To the surprise of those who saw him only as an athlete, during his senior year, he was cast in a play adapted from three Zora Neale Hurston stories. Ali started competing in poetry slams, and secured a California Shakespeare Festival apprenticeship and admission to New York University’s MFA program with performances of his original verses. In a 2019 interview, he reminds budding creatives to rise above people who try to define you, because no one else can tell you where you belong.