Long before Oakland, California saw one of its big- gest sons rise on the national stage at the Academy Awards last Sunday, he had spent the previous week tending to his wife.

Amatus Sami-Karim, the wife of Moonlight star Mahersha- la Ali had given birth to the couple’s first daughter, Bari Na- jima. Days later, he was thanking his wife who endured not only the arduous stretch of awards season, but an awards season that saw him win a SAG Award, a Critic’s Choice Award and the ultimate prize, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Moonlight.

But the Oakland born Ali wasn’t naturally driven towards acting. Instead, growing up in nearby Hayward, California, the 6’3” Ali found himself pushed towards basketball. As a guard for Saint Mary’s, he regularly found himself in the starting lineup but drifted away from the game. He also went by a different name, Mahershala Gilmore, his birth name. “I was a scared kid just trying to hold it all together,” he wrote on the school’s website in 2011.

Losing his father, Phillip, mid-way during his junior season tore at Ali. He struggled focusing on and off the court. The practical jokes and joy he found on the basketball court? Stifled. Grieving and without much direction, Ali almost lost it completely. “I had mentally checked out,” he wrote. “I didn’t really care, and didn’t feel like caring.” Thanks to a professor, he returned to the basketball court for his senior season in 1995-96. Even though he averaged around seven points a game and shot nearly 40 percent from behind the three-point line, his passions had far outgrown basketball. “I went to SMC on a basketball scholarship. But when I graduated, I no longer thought of myself as an athlete,” he said. “Honestly, I kind of resented basketball by the end of my time there.”

Driving more towards poetry and creative writing, he graduated from Saint Mary’s with a degree in Mass Communi- cations. In 2000, four years after crossing the stage, Maher- shala Glimore became Mahershala Ali after a conversion to Islam and joining the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Acting had become his main passion but he never left poetry completely alone. In 2007, he found himself teaming with the Hieroglyphics, an Oakland based rap crew who had become world-renowned on the underground circuit. His 2006 mixtape as Prince Ali titled Corner Ensemble was originally released on his own Eye5 Recordings label be- fore getting re-released via Hiero Emporium a year later. He released one album, Curb Side Service in 2007 to modest acclaim but by then, he had fully began to dive deeper into acting.

Soon he would score credits in films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Predators and the final two films of The Hunger Games saga. But many people have come to know of him with his turn as Remy Danton in Netflix’s House of Cards drama. Then last summer he was brilliant as Carnell “Cottonmouth” Stokes in the Netflix adaptation of Luke Cage.

We often attribute Percy “Master P” Miller as a superhero; a rags-to-riches story in which a man from New Orleans rose from the projects to not only being a rap star but star in his own movies and briefly play in the NBA. Mahershala Ali may be someone’s superhero, a man who had a hand in everything before his passions let the world see him for who he is.