Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore, professionally known as Mahershala Ali, portrayed Cornell Stokes/Cottonmouth in Luke Cage.
He also portrayed Eric Brooks/Blade in Eternals and will reprise the role in Blade.
Awards[]
- He won a BET Award for Best Actor for his work on Luke Cage.
- He won a Black Reel Award for Outstanding Guest Performer, Drama Series for his work on Luke Cage.
Trivia[]
- Mahershala Ali is one of the actors who have portrayed multiple characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Mahershala Ali's role as Cottonmouth in the first season of Luke Cage gave him the inspiration and the idea to be cast as Blade, and contacted his agent on the day Luke Cage premiered to inquire about Marvel Studios' plans for the franchise.[1]
- Mahershala Ali accepted the role of Cottonmouth for the first season of Luke Cage under the condition that he would only be in half the season[2] and that the character would be killed off.[3] This was because he was transitioning from acting in television shows to acting exclusively in movies and therefore did not want to be contractually obligated to portray a non-lead character on a television show for multiple seasons.[4]
- Mahershala Ali creates mixtapes for each character he portrays and Cottonmouth's mixtape includes songs from Big L, Diamond D, Brand Nubian, D'Angelo, Mobb Deep, Kanye West and Erykah Badu.
- Mahershala Ali also voiced Aaron Davis/Prowler in the Sony Pictures Entertainment production Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and voiced another version of Aaron Davis in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
- Mahershala Ali previously worked with Brian Tyree Henry in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and worked again with him in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
- Mahershala Ali previously worked with Nic Pizzolatto in True Detective.
- Mahershala Ali shares his birthday with Elizabeth Olsen and Christopher Eccleston.
