r/entertainment • u/Metro-UK • 9h ago

Mahershala Ali: ‘I’m finally an action hero at age 52’

https://metro.co.uk/2026/10/21/mahershala-ali-im-finally-action-hero-age-52-29721858/
964 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

182

u/burnbabyburnburrrn 9h ago

I’m sorry that man is FIFTY-TWO?!

67

u/IncidentEffective839 8h ago

Black don't crack

43

u/strikefire83 8h ago

He would have been an action hero a hell of a lot sooner if Marvel had gotten its shit together and made Blade. I’m always gonna be pissed off that we missed out on his version of the character.

12

u/MrNotEinstein 8h ago

There's only been one Blade, there's only ever gonna be one Blade.......

3

u/Armandonerd 8h ago

Disney's Blade

1

u/Lurid-Jester 5h ago

Technically two. Don’t forget the Sticky Fingaz series. I know I can’t.

I’ve tried.

10

u/riegspsych325 7h ago

don’t tell the marvelheads that. To them, it’s all Ali’s fault because he “wasn’t happy with the scripts”. Maybe he saw what happened to Brave New World, Secret Invasion, The Marvels, Dr Strange 2, Thor 4, and Quantumania and didn’t want Blade to go through the same meat grinder

3

u/Disastrous-Owl9258 7h ago

As a marvel fan I've seen 10 different articles or posts talking about how marvel dropped the ball on Ali... I haven't seen a SINGLE marvel fan say it was his fault. Maybe you are browsing r/popculture or twitter too much.

3

u/riegspsych325 7h ago

I see it in the marvel studios sub, the spoiler sub, and the main movies sub quite a lot. It probably is a very vocal minority, but the tide seemingly turned on Ali as soon as Feige admitted he felt bad it didn’t work out

1

u/Disastrous-Owl9258 7h ago

Marvel had him under contract for years and did nothing. I mean objectively I don't see how that's Ali's fault in any way? He was tied down to the contract, wanted to move forward, marvel didn't for whatever reason. How can you blame an actor for the decision of a billionaire dollar studio?

1

u/riegspsych325 6h ago

because MCU diehards will never admit Feige has made some poor decisions ever since being promoted to CCO after Endgame. Large handful of movies and shows that went through the same reshoot/rewrite/focus-group/bathos meat grinder yet nobody questions the man at the top

The same problems that only occasionally popped up in the Infinity Saga became full-on features during this Saga. Feige’s done amazing things for Marvel as a brand and the success of the MCU may never be replicated. But it’s wild how blameless he is to marvelheads

0

u/Disastrous-Owl9258 6h ago

I mean do we even know that decision falls directly on fiege? It's a billionaire dollar studio, I'm sure there are multiple people making decisions. Even if it does, most marvel fans are fans of marvel comic books. Not Kevin fiege? You must be talking about angry people on twitter? I haven't seen a single marvel fan really care about Kevin fiege, just the stories being told. You seem to have a personal vendetta against Fiege though.

4

u/Armandonerd 8h ago

Or maybe Ali shouldn't have had that much creative control?

It's always the two C's.

Cash or creative.

He must've gotten a lot of cash, but the creative? Idk.

1

u/KylosApprentice 7h ago

Can Confirm

1

u/solidsnakejake 7h ago

I don’t know why I thought he was older. I guess all the comments saying he was getting too old to be blade but I don’t think his age is an issue at all.

79

u/Metro-UK 9h ago

When the former college basketball player turned two-time Oscar winner pivoted to acting in 2000, he ‘mistakenly assumed’ his career would be filled with daring stunts, explosive sequences and thrilling plots that put their foot on the gas and didn’t let up.

Instead, he found himself playing ’emotionally intellectual characters, very soft and centred, with some wise ones tucked in there, but never too threatening and violent per se,’ as the 52-year-old actor told us during the BFI London Film Festival.

‘To say that I have wanted to do action would definitely be an understatement’ 

27

u/soylentgreenis 9h ago

Cotton mouth is fairly actiony and one of my favorite of his roles

3

u/Coffee_pecking_order 3h ago

The man has such tender eyes and is so good and being expressive and emotional. It's hard not to cast him in such roles.

18

u/boianski 8h ago

Your Mother x3 was excellent.. go see it good people!

8

u/Phillip_Spidermen 8h ago

It's such an interesting movie, I loved it --

but I do think there was a lot less action than the trailer and description "action star" implies. I wonder if that might set the wrong expectation for some audiences

3

u/WendalSaks 6h ago

Completely agree, as someone who was expecting a lot of that

5

u/CancelThis2077 8h ago

Such an interesting concoction of crime thriller, action, family drama, and spirituality.

14

u/paulie_wal_nuts 9h ago

52???? I thought this man was in his early to mid 40's. Damn, I want to look that good when I reach his age.

52

u/Educational_Slice897 9h ago

Dude should have been an action hero years ago when blade would have actually gotten made

15

u/DieWithYou 9h ago

Completely mind-boggling how they fumbled that ball so hard

4

u/FictionFantom 8h ago edited 7h ago

Is it? They spent millions of dollars on pre-production and he kept rejecting scripts written by his hand-picked writers.

Marvel had no problem churning out content. The difference between Blade and all the other committee-made movies these last few years was that Blade was a passion project where the star had creative control.

What’s “mind-boggling” is why he’s acted like he had no idea why Blade didn’t get made whenever he’s been asked.

4

u/Vadermaulkylo 5h ago

This isn’t true though. Gunn had total control over GOTG3, Terry Matalas had total control over VisionQuest, Watiti (unfortunately) had total control over Thor 4, Schaffer had total control over Agatha All Along, and both DDC and Tom Holland had total control over BND besides having to include at least one other MCU character.

Blade failed because neither Ali or Feige were ever satisfied with a script. That’s part of the danger of even making a star’s passion product. The higher up didn’t plan to make it and the star planned a bit too much to make it so are never satisfied with a script.

1

u/Vadermaulkylo 5h ago

It’s an example of why you shouldn’t make a movie just because an actor, even a prestigious one, wants to. Kevin Feige is an accomplished enough producer to know better too.

It’s clear Feige had no plans for a Blade movie in the future and had no clue where to even begin with one at the moment.

1

u/MrBwnrrific 8h ago

I’m literally just some jackass and I could totally write a Blade movie because it is NOT HARD

13

u/CancelThis2077 8h ago

"I'll do my own Blade.... with blackjack and hookers!"

9

u/InevitableTank5108 9h ago

Saw his name and age and got scared for a sec

7

u/TheMoorNextDoor 7h ago

Big Fuck You to Marvel for dropping the ball with both Ali and Blade.

•

u/Ok_Personality7485 2h ago

But also thanks because we got both "Sinners" and "My mother my mother my mother", which I'm convinced are both better movies than Blade would have ended up being with all of the bullshit that movie was dealing with just to try and exist.

4

u/dreevsa 8h ago edited 6h ago

Name and age in title is not a good look, scared me

1

u/CaliggyJack 7h ago

Poor Scott Adkins has been trying to become a Hollywood action star for 30 years

1

u/TheLimeyLemmon 7h ago

Action?

52?

We have found our lead for The Cheetahmen!

1

u/nullibicity 7h ago

In the past two weeks, I've heard at least four people are 52. What is happening? Is no one 51 or 53?

1

u/ACW1129 3h ago

Where the fuck is Blade?

•

u/DigDugged 43m ago

Blade casting never made sense - we already have a senior-aged Blade, why do we need to replace him with a slightly less senior-aged Blade?

1

u/TerribleAntelope6134 8h ago

The Liam Neeson career path.

2

u/bbobeckyj 7h ago

Most action stars don't become that until at least their mid 30s, they don't have the charisma and gravitas when they're younger. Neeson even tried it at 38 and failed.

1

u/SilverEye33 7h ago

Nah. I love you Mahershala, but you ain't an Action Hero.

You got your skull collected by a Predator in Predators.

You need a bigger resume of action roles to be considered one.

0

u/singleguy79 8h ago

There will always be just one Blade...