Mahershala Ali was the initially winner at tonight’s Academy Awards, taking household the greatest supporting actor Oscar for his role in “Moonlight.”

Just after thanking his professors and the cast of “Moonlight,” he paid tribute to a special lady in his life, his wife Amatus Sami-Karim.

“We just had a baby four days ago,” he said. “I just want to thank her for being such a soldier by means of all of this.”

Here are five issues to know about the Oscar winner!

“My mother is an ordained minister. I am a Muslim. She didn’t do backflips when I told her I converted 17 years ago,” he stated though accepting his SAG Award earlier this year. But, he added, “I am capable to see her. She’s able to see me. We love every single other … and that stuff is minutiae.”

Ali plays Juan, a drug dealer in Miami who mentors a troubled young man in “Moonlight.”

In his winning speech, he mentioned, “1 thing they consistently told me .. it wasn’t about you, it’s about these characters, you’re a servant to these stories,” he stated about his part.

“A lot of actors wish they had been getting a visceral response to the scripts that they’re reading. And the very first time I study it, I believe absolutely everyone involved will tell you they got genuinely choked up and just truly connected to this story and these characters,” he told “Good Morning America” earlier this year.

He added that he “misses” his character but has moved on to other roles.

“Due to the fact of this sort of awards tour and us obtaining to share the film so considerably with folks, he’s back with me, so I get to believe about him,” he mentioned.

“Moonlight” is not Ali’s very first role to garner buzz from critics. He’s been acting due to the fact 2000, in shows like “Crossing Jordan,” “Alphas,” “Residence of Cards” and most recently on Netflix’s “Luke Cage” as key villain Cottonmouth.

He is also featured in an additional nominated film this year, “Hidden Figures,” as Col. Jim Johnson.

He’s at the moment filming the James Cameron film “Alita: Battle Angel,” which co-stars Christoph Waltz.

Ali married his artist wife in 2013 and gushed about his wife on WNYC’s “Death, Sex and Money” podcast final March.

He mentioned they were mates though students at New York University and reconnected years later soon after she lost her brother to gun violence.

“She’s pretty a lot an person … She’s about the appropriate items, spiritually grounded, a gorgeous particular person,” he said, adding that he initially had a difficult time approaching her mainly because of his shyness.

He even wrote a poem for his wife, which he carried around in his backpack for a month prior to providing it to her.

Sami-Karim had similar sentiments about her husband, saying on the podcast that he was the most desirable guy on their campus. Soon after she suffered a lot of tragedies, Ali reached out.

“I in no way seriously thought I would get married, to be honest,” she stated. “It was just some thing that clicked, and yeah, now I know why persons get married.”

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