1. The star who scooped the Best Supporting actor Oscar for Moonlight had the best week of his life, as he and his wife welcomed a baby daughter, Bari Najma Ali just four days before the ceremony!
2. Yes, girls, he is married to artist, Amatus Sami-Karim. They met when she was a student at New York University and got married in 2003. “She’ll ground me real quick if I start feeling myself a little too much,” he says of his wife. “She’s very real – like, seriously.”
3. Mahershala is actually a shortened version of his real full name which is Mahershalalhashbaz.
4. He was in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay parts I and II, and played resistance fighter Boggs.
5. Mahershala’s big win at the Oscars, made him the first Muslim-American to ever win an Academy Award!
6. He’s a great co-star. “Mahershala is like a dad to me,” his 12-year-old Moonlight co-star, Alex Hibbert (below left) revealed. “He tells me to stay humble and to stay focused on what I needed to do. He always gives me hugs and everything.”
7. He’s 43! We know, right?!
8. He played ‘fixer’ Remy Denton in Netflix’s House of Cards. We’ll just leave this gif here…
9. He was also in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, opposite Brad Pitt.
10. These are his arms…
For more where than came from, follow him on Insta @mahershalaali