His Rap Name Is Prince Ali: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Oscar Winner Mahershala Ali
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He Decided to Shorten His Name on His Own
While he tried to make his birth name work in Hollywood, Mahershalalhashbaz was a mouthful. The name, a Biblical one his mother dreamed up while pregnant, was something he decided to shorten in the hopes of not limiting his opportunities.
“I was doing The Place Beyond The Pines and I was totally content going by Mahershalahashbaz Ali; it never bothered me and nobody ever told me to change it,” he told WENN. “I had this dream where I shortened my name and I woke up: ‘I’m not changing my name.’ Then, I got a call they wanted to make my name ‘M. Ali’ for this poster, saying, ‘Or you’re not gonna be on it’. It got me to thinking that my friends and family don’t call me Mahershalahashbaz and I didn’t want to limit my experience as an actor because of a few syllables.”
