Mahershala Ali is opening up about the sacrifices that come with being a working father.
During a new interview with GQ, the two-time Oscar winner spoke candidly about raising his only child, 9-year-old daughter Bari, while navigating a career that can take him away from home for months at a time.
“I do the best that I can,” Ali shared. “I hope my daughter will grow up, God willing, and be like, ‘I had an amazing dad.’ But I don’t know if I’m always doing things right.”
Ali, who shares Bari with wife Amatus Sami-Karim, said the family tries to stay together whenever possible. Bari is currently attending school on the East Coast for a semester because that is where he is working.
That was not possible while he filmed Jurassic World Rebirth, which kept him largely apart from his wife and daughter for about five months.
“That didn’t feel good,” he recalled. “It felt hard because we were on the other side of the world just missing each other.”
Their schedules made the distance even harder. When Bari was waking up, Ali was often going to bed, and vice versa.
Still, he believes his daughter notices his efforts.
“I know she sees me trying and she gives me credit for that,” he said.
Ali became emotional while recalling one occasion when Bari wanted to spend time with him, but he had to work.
“I remember saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I have to go to work.’ And she’s crying and she goes, ‘Oh, it’s not your fault.’”
The memory brought him to tears.
“That’s the best I can say without getting too choked up,” he said before asking for a moment and a tissue.Embed from Getty Images
As Bari gets older, Ali said her ability to explain exactly how she feels has affected him differently.
“Once they start getting older and they got that language to really say, ‘This is how I’m feeling,’” he explained, those words can “cut deep.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Ali reflected on his own childhood and whether becoming a father has changed the way he views his own dad.
His father worked in showbiz in New York while Ali grew up on the West Coast, and there were times when he wished his dad had been closer.
“I think it has made me grateful for the iteration of fatherhood that perhaps my daughter is experiencing,” he admitted. “And even that I question, is it enough sometime, you know? And I’m trying to do the best that I can.”
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